You read that correctly. July of 2010. In case you have not been keeping track, the best ever NBA free agent class is two years away. The class includes Lebron, Dwayne Wade, Amare Stoudemire, and Chris Bosh. Teams are falling all over themselves trying to clear cap room. The Detroit Pistons got the ball rolling by trading Chauncey Billups for an expiring contract in Allen Iverson.
The Knicks then kicked it into overdrive, dealing Jamal Crawford and Zach Randolph - two very large contracts - for a has been in Cuttino Mobley, and a never was in Tim Thomas.
The Knicks accomplished a few things here. First they got someone to take those awful contracts off their hands (they still have a bunch of bad deals though). Second, they cleared cap room. Third, they officially went from being a team that looked like it was improving to a team that is pretty much guaranteed to stink out loud for the next two years.
Most don't have a problem with it. In fact, you hear fans from every other team around the league imploring their beloved franchises to deal away their big contracts so they can position themselves to make a run at one of The Fab Four. Simply put, it's a bad idea.
Why would you want to tank the next two seasons like the Knicks are doing? People in New York already are losing interest. Two more years of bad basketball is going to make Madison Square Garden what it was in the early 1980's - empty.
And let's just say it's not the Knicks. Let's say it's a team in a smaller market like the Minnesota Timberwolves. The fan base is ticked off to the point that the best selling jersey in that city is Kevin Garnett's #21. Why risk further alienating the fan base?
There's no guarantee that just because a team has the room under the cap that one of The Fab Four is going to come there. If you were one of those free agents, why would you go to Minnesota, Sacramento, or Indiana when you could play for New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles (let's throw in Miami and Orlando too, considering the state of Florida has no income tax)?
Sure, the base salary might be the same, but there's no way one of these players could make as much in endorsements in one of the NBA's smaller market as opposed to the New York's of the world.
Simply put, it's not a good idea to tank for the next two years on the off chance one of The Fab Four is going to save the franchise. If these organizations tank and then don't sign one of these players, they will have a hard time rebuilding.
And fans in the smaller NBA cities can dream all they want of Lebron wearing their colors. But, it's not going to happen. Those franchises are better off continuing their rebuilding plan as opposed to subscribing to a pipe dream.
I just want to take this opportunity to wish everyone out there a Happy Thanksgiving! I wish everyone out there nothing but the best.
I am going to take the rest of the week off from blogging, and will return Monday morning with a brand new blog!
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