Horrible trade
Two roads
A) Rose plays lights out and make a huge impact FOR ONE YEAR. In which case the Knicks are pressured to give a max deal to a low positional value player who doesn't play team ball, can't hit a 3 at a league average rate, doesn't care about defense, has off the court issues and has an injury history. And the contract would likely encompass his clear decline phase.
B) He's mediocre to bad, in which case the Knicks will let him walk, with NO COMPENSATION, after trading 3 cost controlled years of Jerian Grant ( he's not working out for the Bulls, but this is a "principle" issue) and 3 bargain rate years of a center who wanted to be here, was durable, and would have retained his trade value through his entire contract, while helping the team now and in the future in Robin Lopez.
The fallout was signing Noah to cover for Lopez's loss.
This fundamentally a horrible trade on all levels.
My guess is no one else wanted Rose and no one else would have paid much for him, as he's a huge contract and has all these drawbacks, but the Knicks gave something far more for him than most other teams.
The whey protein you see in stores for guys who lift, it was a byproduct of producing other dairy products. They used to, long ago, throw them away. Those "buffalo wings", the reason bars had them was no one wanted them at one point, they were dirt cheap, and thus were easy snack food to encourage more drinking. Obviously those things are worth something more now. What you didn't see was a bar paying 2017 prices for wings for 1985 prices for wings.
Rose was crap the Bulls were likely going to just let loose for nothing. Then the Knicks paid the premium price for him.
"Why would you throw that away when I'll give you my daughters virginity and my pride and these 1000 gold coins for it? Why?"
Trading for Rose, when the Knicks did, would be just as insane as the Jets trading for Tony Romo right now, knowing full well the Cowboys are going to have to cut that dude in a few weeks anyway.
This was a lose/lose trade from the beginning. If Rose worked out, it offered lots of future risk and problems. If it ended badly, which was more predictable, it offered loss of assets with no return and hurting the actual morale and chemistry of the team.
Would Daryl Morey make this trade? No
Would Danny Ainge make this trade? No
Would Pat Riley make this trade? No
Would Rich Cho make this trade? No
Would Sam Presti make this trade? No
Would rookie Sean Marks make this trade? No
Would RC Buford make this trade? No
Would Bob Myers make this trade? No
Would Masaj Ujiri make this trade? No
Would Vlade Divac make this trade? Maybe.
This trade has ripple that hurts the Knicks for THE NEXT THREE YEARS.
You can say "live and learn" in the NFL, when you can just cut dudes with no mercy and often with no long term impact on your cap. In the NBA, with GUARANTEED CONTRACTS, this kind of stuff is brutal.
Do you know why Jackson made this trade? He had a long relationship with Bill Paxton, that's it. Because he's clearly too busy to scout college players or answer phone calls.
Mark Cuban did something no other owner in the NBA has ever done. When Nash walked in FA and Dampier dogged it and Mike Finley was rotting on his roster, he said - Blame me. It's my fault. I made some bad decisions and no one else is to blame and this franchise will suffer for years because of it. But the flip side was you could see the base reasoning in risking big money on a center, and a wing who had previously produced.
There is just no logical reasoning for signing Noah and trading for Rose. There is no win/win scenario in either case. It was a move by a lazy dumb inexperienced team president looking to cash his comfy big retirement checks.