There are new reports surfacing today that Boston has renewed interest in trading for Melo before the deadline and that Knicks scouts have been at Celtic games recently. While I would love to acquire Boston's 1st round pick this year, which will be swapped for Brooklyn's pick and will most likely end up a top 3 lottery pick;--realistically, there is no way a prudent GM like Ainge would ever relinquish this pick for Melo to a GM who has made it publicly known he is desperate to unload his star, and whose said star holds a no trade clause and will only go to a hand selected amount of teams. This diminishes his trade value,although he has helped his stock the last few games while playing at the 4 putting up monstrous, old Melo-like numbers.
Which brings me to my question: would you trade Melo for Crowder, Amir Johnson and Jerebko. On the surface it looks like we're not yielding much back in return, but I can make a strong case how this instantly helps our team and rebuilding.
1) Amir Johnson and Jerebko are expiring contracts. By trading Melo for these two contracts--not the players--we shed almost 20 million off the cap this summer. Add to that the 21 million that will come off the books at the end of the year for Rose's contract (no we are NOT extending him), we will have over 40 million dollars of cap flexibility going forward for our rebuilding process. By keeping Melo, we are stuck wit ha max contract for 2 more seasons after this one for a player who will not be a MAX player anymore (many would argue he is not a max player mpw with his athleticism eroding).
2) I must admit I did not know much about Jae Crowder until I did some research on him recently. All I knew was that he was a 2nd round pick, overachieving type of player whose known for his defense (something our team desperately needs). I also knew that Phil had interest in him last offseason, so he does like the player. In checking his stats this year, I was blown away. He is the starting small forward for one of the best teams in the eastern conference and here are his numbers:
In his last 10 games, he is averaging 18ppg and 6 rebounds shooting .517 from the field, while playing plus defense. Small sample size, right?
Well for the season, he is averaging 14ppg, 5 rebounds shooting .488 from the field and get this--the kicker--.427 from 3 point range! If that's not a prototypical 3 and D player, I don't know what is. He has developed his jump shot the last two years and is now a 2 way player (something we know Melo is not).
Moreover, he's only 26 years old and on a very friendly contract of about 6 million per year for the next 3 years, which coincide with his prime years of playing basketball (a huge asset).
If you plug him into the 3 to replace Melo, we instantly become a lot better defensively--our main weakness this year--while he still provides plenty of offense as a role player. Moreover, if you surround the court with the likes of Crowder, Lee (one of the best 3 point shooters in the league), Holiday, Baker and of course KP--we would become one of the deadliest 3 point shooting teams in the league!
In sum, we would shed 40 million dollars of payroll at the end of the season, add a young, talented and offensively developing role player like Crowder to our core, while still having our 1st round pick this summer, which will have a better chance of being a lottery pick--further enhancing the true rebuild and building around KP for the future.
In an ideal world, I would want a 1st round pick in return for Melo, but that may not be feasible right now, and this deal still has plenty of value for us and would serve the purpose of rebuilding.
Thoughts?!?
