Raymond Felton and John Fox, together again.
Feel bad for Felton, the former Charlotte Bobcat whom the New York Knicks sent to the Denver Nuggets in the trade for Carmelo Anthony. Felton doesn't strike me as a guy who willingly flits from team to team. His preference, in fact, was to remain a Bobcat.
But the Knicks made an excellent move, trading Felton, Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Timofey Mozgov and a 2014 first-round pick for Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Shelden Williams, Anthony Carter and Renaldo Balkman.
In trades, the team that acquires the most players almost never wins. The team that acquires the single best talent wins.
Anybody who follows the Bobcats knows this. The Bobcats had a chance to move up and acquire Chris Paul or Deron Williams in the 2005 NBA draft. But to do it they would have had to trade both their first-round picks. They chose quantity over quality.
They had Williams ranked in front of Paul on their draft board, incidentally. Watch the Knicks attempt to make a run at both of them.
I like Felton, especially in the Knicks run-run offense. But Billups is a better point guard.
Anthony isn't as good as LeBron James, Kobe Bryant or Kevin Durant. He can be petulant, shooting too much or too little, and defense rarely interests him.
But he is a talent. Anthony and New York's Amare Stoudamire will make a compelling frontcourt.
The NBA is better when the Knicks are interesting. Fans get caught up in the union of stars, as television ratings attest. Miami's collection of LeBron, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh has sent ratings soaring all season.
Sunday's all-star game drew its highest rating in eight years, since Michael Jordan last played.
Denver had to trade Anthony, who had no interest in staying after his contract expired.
But the Nuggets didn't add a single star. New York did.
dam i fell really bad for felton, made what a year for him, go tony from charlotte now ship to cold azz colorado, talk about a crazy year, i want to know tom, is there a slight chance at all that we can get a deron williams or paul next year when they become free agent, do you think mj can pitch this city to them, if willaims can play in utah then why not play in charlotte??
Posted by: callingitlikeiseeit | February 22, 2011 at 09:45 AM
I just want to have hope that Charlotte (or any small market team) can compete. If these players only want to play for one of like 5 teams its going to ruin the NBA for me. Right now I have very little hope for Charlotte, cleveland, memphis, etc. The NFL has that part right at least, every team has hope
Posted by: down on nba | February 22, 2011 at 09:53 AM
Tom,
Has there been talk of the NBA adding a "Franchise Tag" for each team. I think if they don't give the smaller markets the ability to keep bigtime talent the NBA is going to be 4 or 6 teams of interest. That can't be the best solution.
Posted by: Nick | February 22, 2011 at 11:31 AM
@callingitlikeiseeit I think the Bobcats can get Paul if anybody. He is from the area. MJ got to persuade him though. Get rid of Jackson and Diaw and get serviceable players.
Posted by: TheRabbitGottheGun | February 22, 2011 at 11:44 AM
continuing what they gave up is ... "Anthony Randolph, Eddy Curry's expiring contract, their own first round pick in 2014, Golden State's second round picks in 2012 and 2013, and $3 million in cash" - they also receive Corey Brewer in the deal.
I don't buy that giving up 80% of your starting roster to get Anthony and getting aging once-greats (esp. in Billups who strongly wanted to stay/retire in Denver) is a great plan (for this year). It may work out in future years but this seems like a way to make sure you got "a deal" for Anthony vs. getting a "good deal" with Anthony included.
And I don't know that they did themselves any favors on defense. And in the East, defense seems like the asset that helped the Pistons in the past, helps the Celtics today and I think you'll need a lot of D to match up with Orlando and Miami.
My guess is that this was more about ego and less about due diligence or even short and long term planning. The only thing this deal did IMO was make sure that James Dolan (and possibly Isaiah Thomas) look better to NY fans in the near term.
Posted by: Adam | February 22, 2011 at 01:18 PM
Bobcats will not get Paul, ever! Williams won't be here either. The only way we get a "superstar" is if we draft one! I hate it for Felton too! I agree he doesn't seem to be the type to "flit" around either. Like they all say, "this is a business"!
Posted by: digal704 | February 22, 2011 at 03:26 PM
It's hard to feel bad for Felton when he turned down a better contract from the Bobcats in the summer of 2009 than he got from NY. The Knicks let him know he wasn't their long-term solution at PG by signing him to a 2-year deal last summer. The reality is that he'll probably get traded again since Ty Lawson is the PG of the future in Denver. I do wish him the best and hope he lands somewhere where he can be a contributor on a good team. Actually, I wouldn't mind Denver sending him back to the 'Cats. Stranger things have happened.
Posted by: Cats_Fan | February 22, 2011 at 05:23 PM