Tiger Hawk
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Florida has no state taxes so that's why a lesser value contract there wasn't a huge deal for either James or Bosh. They were worse off then the max offers both the Cavs and Raps made, but not massively so.
NY does have state taxes so it wouldn't be the same. But there would be massive marketing opportunities with Stoudemire (the whole "returning Knicks to glory" angle etc), so yes I could see Melo taking a couple mill less if he got to go home and made it up in other avenues. BUT, that's assuming the cap and CBA stay the same - they won't. Things will be traded off between the league and the PA and it's entirely possible the cap is set at a lower number. And / or it's a hard cap.
If everything was unchanged, I'd say right here that Melo would opt-out, sign with the Knicks for a bit less and that's that. But with the uncertainty, I'm not sure he's prepared to take the risk.
It's certainly going to be interesting. If I'm Melo, I sign the extenion right now, leave nothing to chance. $80m+ guaranteed is easily the best he's going to do. I think he's leaning that way, judging by his recent comments. Likewise, if I'm the Knicks, then I'm trading for him even if it costs me more than what I want - they've sold the fan-base on returning to respectability so they can't take the chance of a lock-out affecting any free agent hopes, or Melo signing elsewhere, or staying with Denver.
Melo for Curry, Fields, Chandler and a number 1 (or Randolph) plus $3m of Dolan's money and everyone's happy. Denver get Fields and Randolph / draft pick as building blocks, rights to match offers for Chandler (a decent player having a breakout season), cap relief, cash and if they can move Billups in combination with Andersen or Harrington (or both), then they'd have a bucket of money to play with as JR Smith and K-Mart also come off the books this year. Meanwhile the Knicks can build around Melo-STAT with Galinari and Felton providing support and hopefully another quality FA in 2012.
NY does have state taxes so it wouldn't be the same. But there would be massive marketing opportunities with Stoudemire (the whole "returning Knicks to glory" angle etc), so yes I could see Melo taking a couple mill less if he got to go home and made it up in other avenues. BUT, that's assuming the cap and CBA stay the same - they won't. Things will be traded off between the league and the PA and it's entirely possible the cap is set at a lower number. And / or it's a hard cap.
If everything was unchanged, I'd say right here that Melo would opt-out, sign with the Knicks for a bit less and that's that. But with the uncertainty, I'm not sure he's prepared to take the risk.
It's certainly going to be interesting. If I'm Melo, I sign the extenion right now, leave nothing to chance. $80m+ guaranteed is easily the best he's going to do. I think he's leaning that way, judging by his recent comments. Likewise, if I'm the Knicks, then I'm trading for him even if it costs me more than what I want - they've sold the fan-base on returning to respectability so they can't take the chance of a lock-out affecting any free agent hopes, or Melo signing elsewhere, or staying with Denver.
Melo for Curry, Fields, Chandler and a number 1 (or Randolph) plus $3m of Dolan's money and everyone's happy. Denver get Fields and Randolph / draft pick as building blocks, rights to match offers for Chandler (a decent player having a breakout season), cap relief, cash and if they can move Billups in combination with Andersen or Harrington (or both), then they'd have a bucket of money to play with as JR Smith and K-Mart also come off the books this year. Meanwhile the Knicks can build around Melo-STAT with Galinari and Felton providing support and hopefully another quality FA in 2012.
