netgarden’s posterous

The short-term point: We're headed for a particularly feverish trading season. Heading into Christmas, I can't remember a longer list of teams that absolutely have to make a move for one of three reasons:

Group A: To save money and/or shed cap space for next season (and the next two to three seasons).
Group B: To get something for a franchise player before he flees in free agency.
Group C: To give away a top-shelf player as a way to shed an unpalatable contract or three.

Back to the Knicks: Scott Layden and Isiah Thomas did so much damage to that franchise that, really, there's a certain symmetry in them emerging from the 2000s without keeping a single lottery pick thanks to the aforementioned two trades. But if they cleared the decks completely, couldn't they seduce LeBron with the offer of building his own franchise from scratch in America's biggest city -- the metropolis where basketball matters the most, in a market he could potentially own like no New York athlete since Namath, in one of the two cities that would allow him to pursue all the non-basketball things he wants to pursue -- and put himself on the map for eternity as the guy who saved basketball in New York City? Anyone can win a title. Not anyone can own New York for a few years.

Look, I change my mind on this topic almost every month. I have no idea how it will play out. None. I just know the Knicks have a chance to offer LeBron James something that nobody else has ever been offered in sports history: A blank canvas and unlimited resources for a potential top-10 player of all time who is just hitting his prime to build his own All-Star team. It's unprecedented. If Gallinari and Hill have to be sacrificed to make it happen, you do it. You don't even think twice.

Simmons is never light on the snarky-ness, but his analysis is crisp. Should be fun to watch how the "game within the game" plays out.