Knicks & Suns pull of Blockbuster

[Headache in a Suitcase]

The Knicks and Suns finalized a blockbuster trade Monday that will return Stephon Marbury to his hometown.


New York acquired Marbury and Penny Hardaway from Phoenix for Antonio McDyess, Howard Eisley, Charlie Ward, the rights to Milos Vujanic, two first-round draft picks, and cash, ESPN.com has learned.


The trade still requires NBA approval. The Suns will get the Knicks' first-round pick in the 2004 draft and a future conditional first-rounder.


The trade will be the fourth of Marbury's career. The Brooklyn native was drafted by Milwaukee and immediately traded to Minnesota, where he subsequently forced a trade to New Jersey.


The Nets traded him to Phoenix for Jason Kidd, and he now is headed to the Knicks in the first major move made by new team president Isiah Thomas.


The trade is a major shakeup of both teams. Phoenix, in exchange for its best player, gains salary cap flexibility that would allow the Suns to rebuild a team that was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs last season after missing the postseason a year earlier.


The contracts of McDyess and Ward expire at the end of this season, and Ward has a buyout clause that can be exercised before Jan. 10.


Eisley is under contract for three more seasons; Vujanic, the starting point guard on the Yugoslavian team that won the 2002 World Championships, is playing in Europe.


Information from The Associated Press was used in this report

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

yes i know zoney... it's another new york sports story

 

[Hewson]

I guess the Knicks are no longer pursuing Rasheed Wallace then.

Marbury will do well in NY, Penny is just a bit player these days.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

don't be so sure about that hewson...

if kurt thomas, charlie ward and cash coulda gotten the 'sheed deal done, thomas, frank williams & cash certainly could we shall see...

isiah's tryin' to do something... i don't know if this is the something i would've done... but it's something.

my biggest concern is marbury playing in new york. he's a coney island guy, and he's gonna have tons of people following him around... you think AI has a big entourage in philly... wait till you see the people Steph has around him back home. we'll see...

 

[Hewson]

Can the Knicks fit Steph and Rasheed both under the cap??

Marbury is gonna excite the MSG crowd, now the Knicks just need to fill in around him.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

they traded 18 year old maciej lampe to the suns too... lampe and vujanic are regarded as top european prospects...

they're basicly mortaging the future right now to try and win now... and they ain't winning now with this team, so they best be trying for another move, like perhaps rasheed...

it's not about fitting in under the cap... they're already over the cap... if they can match salarys, they can get the deal done... the cap is 45 million and the knicks went into the season with an 89 million dollar payroll... if they can find a team to trade 15 million worth of marginal players for a 15 million dollar wacko like 'sheed, it's allowed under the nba rules, even though it would be over the cap.

if you can understand what i just said, i'll give you a cookie.

 

[anitram]

So it costs 89 million to suck that much?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

yes it costs 89 million to make a crappy team... thus why i was an avid supporter of the "fire layden" cause... the former knick gm who built this mess. i didn't like the hiring of isiah, but he's gettin' the job done so far... he's at least made them competitive again.

on a side note... charlie ward is now the best quarterback in phoenix

on another side note... there's only two players in nba history to have career averages of 20+ points and 8+ assists... oscar robertson and stephon marbury. go figure

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

from ESPN.com Insider...

Will the Knicks pull off another blockbuster? As I just wrote above, the feeling on Wednesday was that Thomas was looking to make one major trade. Both scenarios (Portland and Cleveland) are still just rumors in my mind. But they're interesting and more plausible than they first appeared on paper.

Upon taking over the Knicks, Thomas set out to get two marquee players -- Marbury and Wallace. Thomas used up most of his trade bait to get Marbury, leading many to believe that Wallace was unattainable. Given the latest talk, that may be misguided. While Blazers GM John Nash has been adamant in the past about not taking back long-term deals for Wallace, a trade with the Knicks may make some sense for Portland if the Knicks are willing to take back Ruben Patterson as part of the trade.

If the Knicks sent Van Horn, Williams, Sweetney, Michael Doleac and Dikembe Mutombo to Portland for Wallace and Patterson, the Blazers' cap number would rise from a projected $42 million next year to around $55 million. That's a pretty big increase to swallow, but if they can last one more year while they wait for Dale Davis and Damon Stoudamire to come off the books, the number gets much more palatable.

Right now the Blazers have only $18.3 million in committed salaries for the 2005-06 season. That number would go to $27.6, still far enough under the cap to make a big free-agent signing and re-sign Zach Randolph. In 2006-07, their number would actually go down from a projected $18.5 million to $11.5 million because Van Horn comes off the books before Patterson.

The bottom line for the Blazers is that, at $42 million, they won't have enough cash to get a marquee free agent to replace Wallace anyway. Why not take on a good small forward (whose talents are better suited to the West Coast style anyway) and a bright young point guard, clean up the image of the team by dumping Wallace and Patterson without sacrificing wins (Van Horn, Williams, Sweetney and Mutombo should at least be able to duplicate the wins Wallace and Patterson are giving the team), and still have enough cap room in 2005 to start reloading the team?

For the Knicks, the addition of Wallace, a superstar talent with a NDBL head, would be another major coup. Thomas believes he can get through to Wallace, and combined with Marbury, Houston and Kurt Thomas, the Knicks would have enough talent to compete with any team in the East.

 

[U2ME3]

Another Rumor: According to NY Times, Knicks offered Cavs Frank Williams and Othella Harrington for Darius Miles.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

that's apparently not a rumor... that deal was offered, isiah turned it down. that deal then spawned into frank williams, van horn and sweetney for d-miles and zydrunas illguaskus, which is still very much a possability if the rasheed wallace deal falls apart.

if i can get steph marbury, 'sheed wallace, tom coughlin and vlad guerrero to my teams all in the same week, i'll be a very happy man

 

[Hewson]

Whats an NDBL head?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

i believe that's supposed to be NBDL... national basketball development league

 

[Hewson]

Ah.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

wowzers... don cheney needs to be locked away in a spider hole and never released...

he gets a new engergetic, fast pased point guard... and they run the same slow it down crap plays that they ran with ward and eisley. ARE YOU FRIGGIN KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!?! ADJUST FOR YOUR PERSONEL YOU FUKING IDIOT!!!!!!!!!

isiah thomas will be the coach of the knicks within 2 weeks

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

marv says YESSSS!

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

nevermind... marv says no to the czar...

... and YESSSSSSSSS to the all time winningest coach in nba history!

 

[Chizip]

and YESSSSS when dressed in leather and biting people

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

well that's a given