Was the Melo trade really that lopsided?

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New York is doing terribly. Of course last season after they traded for Melo they didn’t do too hot but most people didn’t notice as the Knicks managed to make the playoffs and Amare was able to score lots of points. Melo is getting a decent share of the blame for this season, though. And as a Denver Nuggets fan I’ll be the first to admit I’m more than happy with Melo hate.

All that being said, when we examine the trade that resulted in New York getting Melo it’s hard to say it was bad for New York.  At least, it wasn’t bad for the reason people think.

Point Guard gains and losses for New York
Gained/Loss Player MP WP48 Wins Produced
 Gained Chauncey Billups  2310 0.158 7.6
 Gained Anthony Carter 463 0.045 0.4
 Lost Raymond Felton  2737  0.121  6.9 
Shooting Guard gains and losses for New York
Gained/Loss Player MP WP48 Wins Produced
 Gained Corey Brewer 1510 0.37 1.2
Small Forward gains and losses for New York
Gained/Loss Player MP WP48 Wins Produced
 Gained Carmelo Anthony 2751 0.088 5.1
 Gained* Renaldo Balkman* 780 0.301 4.9
 Lost Danilo Gallinari 2104 0.096 4.2
 Lost Wilson Chandler 2401 0.081 4.0
Power Forward gains and losses for New York
Gained/Loss Player MP WP48 Wins Produced
 Gained Shelden Williams 911 0.100 1.9
 Lost Anthony Randolph 590 0.017 0.2
Center gains and losses for New York
Gained/Loss Player MP WP48 Wins Produced
 Lost Timofey Mozgov 524 -0.021 -0.2
 Lost** Eddy Curry** 1530 -0.039 -1.2

Balkman and Curry have been getting limited minutes. Numbers taken from last season with over 500 minutes played
* Balkman’s numbers for 2008-2009 season
** Curry’s numbers for 2007-2008 season

So from a numbers stand point this worked out well, or at least decently for the Knicks. Let’s break down why they “lost” the trade.

The Knicks picked players on the wrong side of 30

Chauncey Billups was actually a better point guard than Felton last season. The issue of course is that Billups was 34 last season compared to Felton’s 26. Sticking with Felton would have meant a young affordable option at point guard. Sticking with Billups meant gambling with age. Of course that’s not the worst part of it.

The Knicks let the good players go or are sitting them

Chauncey Billups was playing well to end last season and had a reasonable opt out (or a short term deal for this season). The Knicks chose to let him go (oddly they needed to save money after giving almost $40 million a season to Amare and Melo). His play has been iffy but given the lack of help at the point, letting go the only viable option seems foolish. (I personally applaud making cap space for Tyson Chandler. I just debate letting go the short term deal of your only decent point guard as the way to do it.)

Williams was an average power forward last season. The Knicks could definitely use more help in the front court as it turns out Amare has ceased being a good player. Of course the Knicks let him walk.

Renaldo Balkman was once a very good player for both Denver and New York. Both teams had a pesky habit of not playing him. Sadly their attitudes have not changed. So despite getting a potential gem out of the Melo trade, the Knicks are instead letting Melo just shoot as much as he wants. Speaking of Melo…

The Knicks gave up picks and money

The real way the Knicks lost this trade was as follows. By picking up Melo the Knicks decided to pay $18 million a year for Melo as opposed to less than $5 million a year this season for Gallo (and less for an extension given the fact that contracts are cheaper for younger players). The Knicks also gave both the Nuggets and the Timberwolves cash as part of the trade. Finally the Knicks gave up two second round picks and a first round pick. From a financial standpoint this trade was quite bad.

Summing up

The Knicks are doing bad in large part due to bad management. The truth is that the trade was bad, primarily because of age and expense. In terms of production the Knicks didn’t do too poorly. Of course that would require the Knicks front office to both keep the right players from the trade and play the right players from the trade (when Dave analyzed the trade last season he thought the Knicks could be a 50 win team). Given that the Knicks gave Amare a long term contract — and also gave him lots of minutes — it didn’t seem likely this would happen.

Now that the Knicks franchise is in a familiar situation it seems the best move is to point at Melo and blame him for not being a superstar. Of course, he’s never been a superstar. The truth is you can’t just will bad or average players to play great. The Knicks front office seems to think that by paying lots of money for some players they should be getting more production. The fact, though, it’s hard to blame the players for taking the money New York was offering.

It is fairly easy to blame the Knicks front office for making bad moves. After all it’s nothing new.

-Dre

10 thoughts on “Was the Melo trade really that lopsided?”

  1. They should have stayed with the team they had, allowed Curry’s 11M contract to expire, and picked up Chandler (or another FA) to fill out one the need for rebounding and interior defense. It might have required some other roster moves, but they would still have the amnesty they used on Billups available to make more space if required.

    Then the major pieces would be:

    Starters:

    Chandler C
    Amare PF/C
    Gallo SF
    Fields SG/SF
    Felton PG

    Bench:

    Mozgov C
    Turiaf C
    Wilson Chandler SG/SF/PF
    Douglas SG/PG
    Shumpert SG/PG
    Walker SG/SF
    Harrelson C/PF
    Randolph SF/PF

    That team would run rings around the current one and have more developmental upside and picks to improve going forward.

  2. LTK,
    Yeah the Melo trade took away their cap flexibility, cost them future picks and replaced some of their younger pieces with older pieces. You could almost argue it was short term gain but they didn’t play any of their short term gains and then cut them loose.

  3. This is how it happened.

    The basketball people (Walsh and D’Antoni) did a decent job fixing the cap space mess, drafting, and getting some decent young pieces heading into the big FA year.

    Amare wasn’t their first choice. Amare was a high stakes gambit. They wanted Lebron, but they knew they had a 0% chance of attracting him with Gallo and Lee as the center pieces. So they signed Amare because he fit the system well and it was well known that James had expressed some interest in playing with Amare in Cleveland.

    It didn’t work, but they were still young, had some good pieces, and had a ton of flexibility. They were 2 games over .500 at the time of the trade.

    It was Dolan that wanted to trade for Melo.

    Walsh and D’Antoni played the good soldiers and said they were in favor of it also, but during that period there were several articles and reports suggesting both were privately against it, but Dolan hijacked the negotiations and made the deal.

  4. I’m not sure if you want to get requests in your comment threads, but y’all really should do an article on the Bulls & the Pareto Principle. Currently the Bulls have 12 (twelve!) players with a WP48 > .150. Their 8th most productive player is at least as half as productive as their best. What’s going on? Did Thibodeau find a way to break the system?

  6. Hmmmm. I don’t think this is a good explanation for why the Knicks have performed badly this year. IMO, the main reason that the Knicks are doing badly this year is that there are 3 players on the team, getting good minutes, who are playing substantially worse than should have been expected based on past performance.

    Toney Douglas has a WP48 of -.130, having played 372 minutes (23.3 MPG). Last year, he had a WP48 of .113.

    Landry Fields has a WP48 of .119, having played 505 minutes (31.6 MPG). Last year, he had a WP48 of .219.

    Amare Stoudamire has a WP48 of -.061, having played 485 minutes (34.6 MPG). Last year, he had a WP48 of .070.

    Those 3 players have produced in total -.37 wins so far this year. If they performed at last year’s production level, they would have produced 3.89 wins. In other words, the Knicks have lost over 4 wins (!) simply because those three players have performed worse this year. (And that fall off cannot be explained by age.)

  7. I’ll note, BTW, that my explanation for why the Knicks are doing badly this year is similar to Dave’s explanation last week for why the Celtics are doing badly – some of the players are simply playing much worse than expected.

    I don’t think this has all that much to do with the trade for Melo. That was a lateral trade. And the move to get Chandler, which required dropping Billups to make the salaries work (I don’t think they could have acquired Chandler any other way, given the Knicks salary structure), was an upgrade.

  8. Al S,

    I agree that several Knicks are playing poorly and that’s why the Knicks are disappointing, but this is where the debate often gets into grey areas.

    IMO the stats tell you what is happening, but they don’t tell you why it’s happening.

    IMO several Knicks are playing poorly because:

    1. They don’t have a good PG creating as many easy assisted shots for Amare, Fields, and Douglas as they got last year with Felton.

    2. Melo slows the pace of the game down so those same 3 players are getting fewer easy transition baskets.

    3. Since they don’t have a true PG, the Knicks have chosen to run the offense through Melo a lot. That has lead to more TOs and fed right into his tendency to dominate the ball and take low efficiency long 2s and other contested jump shots instead of getting open looks for Douglas and Fields and baskets at the rim for Amare.

  9. “And the move to get Chandler, which required dropping Billups to make the salaries work (I don’t think they could have acquired Chandler any other way, given the Knicks salary structure), was an upgrade.”

    The Chandler/Billups move was less of an upgrade than it appears even if you exclude the impact of having no PG (until Baron Davis comes back).

    IMO Chandler is clearly an upgrade over Billups, but to make the space they also had to get rid of Turiaf who played a lot of productive minutes at C.
    I’m not so sure Chandler is much of an upgrade over the combination of Turiaf and Billups.

    Had they not done the trade, they had several contracts coming off the books (including Curry’s 11.3m). Allowing those players to leave (except Wilson Chandler who was/is a RFA) would have made room for Tyson Chandler. If need be, they could have amnestied someone else and moved Turiaf the way they did.

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