JANUARY 29: The Knicks are “exploring avenues” to part with Noah, according to Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports, who tweets that the veteran center had a heated verbal exchange with Jeff Hornacek during a practice last week.
If New York can’t find a trade partner willing to take on Noah, waiving him and stretching his contract is an option. Last month, we broke down the impact of such a move on the Knicks’ salary cap.
JANUARY 26: Joakim Noah is currently away from the Knicks for what the team is calling “personal reasons,” and sources tell Marc Berman of The New York Post that the veteran center is unhappy with his situation in New York. As a result, the Knicks have “ramped up” their efforts to trade Noah, reports Berman, citing a source.
Noah, like fellow center Willy Hernangomez, has seen his role reduced this season due to the Knicks’ frontcourt logjam. Enes Kanter and Kyle O’Quinn have been the team’s primary centers for most of the 2017/18 campaign.
With O’Quinn and Kristaps Porzingis sidelined on Tuesday against Golden State, Noah had been hoping to see increased minutes. However, he only played sparingly in garbage time and was “visibly upset” after the game, according to Berman, who suggests that the incident may have triggered Noah’s departure from the team. Berman adds that the veteran center might not rejoin the Knicks until next Thursday.
While a trade may be a preferred outcome for both the Knicks and Noah, it’s hard to imagine the team finding a trade partner willing to take on the big man’s massive contract. Noah, who has a cap hit of $17.765MM for 2017/18, will still have two years and about $37.83MM in guaranteed money left on his deal after this season.
In previous trade talks, the only way the Knicks could get another team to consider taking on Noah was by attaching their 2018 first-round pick, according to Berman. New York’s front office is very much against giving up that first-rounder, which looks increasingly likely to be a lottery selection, so a Noah deal appears to be a long shot. Nonetheless, the Knicks plan to ask teams around the NBA about the idea as the trade deadline nears, says Berman.
The Phil Jackson gift that keeps on giving
God I miss Phil fun times fun times
I think packaging him with the 2020 draft pick would be beneficial to both teams in a trade. We need this years pick but I believe the Knicks of 2020 will not have a high pick. Kristaps will only get better, and the added call will help
so how is it a benefit to the other team?
There is NOTHING beneficial about acquiring Joakim Noah! NOT A SINGLE SOLITARY THING! You would have to attach a top 15 pick for anyone to want to have him walk in their building. He’s been such a disease. At one point he was a drama queen who could grab rebounds. Now? He doesn’t even want to play. He would’ve already retired if Phil hadn’t given him about 3 years and 54 million more than anyone else in the league would’ve given him. I sure hope he’s not getting paid. OR! I hope it’s a legitimate reason. I don’t hope anyone is sick or anything. I just hope he’s not out because he’s old, and his team isn’t great, and he’s washed up. It’s about time for DRose to need some “space to think”. And they can kick it together. Good riddance
I have to imagine you would have to give up two unprotected first round picks for anyone take that awful contract.
Would two unprotected firsts even do it? That is one toxic contract …
You know if he offered to give up all that money on that ridiculous contract in a buyout the Knicks would probably be more than happy to let him find a new team….
He’s not going to find a new team
He’s not going to give up $40 million either
Call the Lakers and do a strait up swap for Luol Deng. Deng wants out of LA and the Lakers don’t want him. NY could use another wing. Both contracts match. No draft picks need to be exchanged.
I agree. The Lakers could stretch Noah after the season just as they’ll have to stretch Deng if they decide against packaging him with a first-round pick or some other premium asset just to unload Deng’s contract.
Deng has even more negative value than Noah. Noah can still defend the C spot at a high level and could be useful for a playoff team at some point. If the contract coming back is equally bad and the guy can’t play any longer, then there is little point.
Deng is a positive force on the team unlike Noah. The knicks should make the swap and then decide what to do.
Good idea, Deng is still an ok player.
Going to have to attach him to a pick or an expiring contract . Even then it is likely they would have to take on a bad contract themselves. Perhaps a trade with WAS
Noah and O’Quinn
For
Ian Mahinmi And 1st Rd Pick
Or
Noah, O’Quinn and Beasley
For
Meyers Leonard and Mo Harkless, &
1st rd Pick
Why would anyone give up a first rounder to get Noah? Gonna take 2 just to clear that abortion of a contract.
Both of those teams are playoff contenders with underachieving centers, they are giving up the pick for the other players involved in the transactions, both of which would be upgrades.
I’d rather lose in game 7 of the NBA Finals and never have a true C, than have Noah on my team. Dude peaked in college
So you have the Wizards taking on the Noah albatross contract AND giving a first rounder to land O’Quinn? Washington’s GM would get fired immediately after accepting that deal
Why would Washington deal a 1st to swap Mahinmi for Noah? They’d be taking on salary in the swap, and O’Quinn will opt out after this season.
He was a NYKnicks fan
Luol Deng 1 for 1
Rebuilding teams don’t trade draft picks to get rid of a bad contract. Rebuilding teams acquire draft picks by taking on other teams’ bad contracts.
What is the benefit to the Knicks in getting rid of Noah’s contract? Even if he was traded without taking back any $$ beyond this season (which is not realistic), it wouldn’t result in material cap space (above the MLE) being available this summer. There are no luxury tax concerns. So why would they ever think of giving up something like a 1st round pick (regardless of when and regardless of protection) to get rid of him? What team in their situation has EVER done that?
I home the Knicks finally learned the lesson: don’t give away 1st round picks, especially as a “cover” for previous mistakes. Young, cheap, controllable talent is unvaluable.
Teams should trade overpaid players for other overpaid players. Trade Noah for an an overpaid forward on a team that has minutes for a center. Noah is certainly well-rested. The package the Cavs offered to Sacto, less Rose, for Hill, could just as well be offered to NY for Noah.
Lol thank god the Bulls cut ties with him when the time came.
What a horrible move by Phil to sign him to that huge disaster of a contract
I don’t think we’ll understand how such a great coach, made such a dumb move! And a bad GM/pres
Until years later it will sink in. It’s one of the worst free agent deals of all time. In ANY SPORT!!!!
No it was one of the worst deals at the time. Dude had a bum shoulder and was averaging like 4ppg before getting 72M
So far their efforts to turn back time have failed.
Maybe the Knicks could try and deal Noah with one of their multiple 2nd round picks for a player who has a contract running through 2018-2019.
They should take some of Phil’s money and pay Noah to take a hike!
Maybe Noah, and a second, and cash to a playoff team that needs a backup or 3rd string center. That team sends a First round pick back. It’ll be like moving up from 2nd round into the back of the first.
The noah situation is a very clear illustration that Hornacek is just a terrible coach. There is zero reason for a team this bad to simply not allow him on the court at all unless they don’t want to trade him.
Not only is it bad for the team and the player but it’s probably the most disrespectful thing you could do to a player. You really have to be a bad person to not have found him a half a game at some point in a lottery bound season. There is no way I would be viewing this situation as anything but the team saying “We don’t like you as a player or a person and we don’t have any respect for you at all. We would rather eat your entire contract than trade you because we want you to suffer.”
Noah wants to play and you can argue that he’s overpaid or that the team has better options but you cannot argue that the team would have been hurt if it found a way to give noah some small chance to show the league what he can do to try to get a trade.
Even if for some reason the team would only consider a buyout they can’t reasonably expect Noah to even discuss one if he isn’t even given one game to show he can still play and get an idea of what his market might be.
Mills also needs to go. His stink is all over too many of the teams long term issues to ignore.
emac: are you from the player’s union? that is a nice sentiment, but this is the NB freaking A.
Hornacek above anything else, has an obligation to the men in his lockerrrom to put the best team on the court as possible and give them the best chance to win basketball games.
Based on the production he’s getting from Zinger, Kanter and O’Quinn, it’s hard to develop an argument to suggest that Noah’s not playing is “bad for the team.”
I’ll also point you to players like Tyson Chandler and Jared Dudley, playing on a garbage go-nowhere team. They shutup and play because they’re professionals.
Noah? He’s an entitled waste of space who just wants to be famous.
With Kantor and O’Quinn gone in a couple of months Noah and Hernangomez are the Knicks only centers next year.
If they wanted Noah gone they wouldn’t be hiding him. Unless they are completely incompetent.
They need to trade Kantor and O’Quinn instead of losing them for nothing
Kanter isn’t going anywhere. Whether he opts in or out, he’ll be back.
There is little that Hornacek can do about Noah’s lack of playing time. The slight reduction in Noah’s negative value that would result from him playing effectively in meaningful minutes is not worth screwing a guy, Kanter, who’s been their best player this year and is having something of a breakout year. Or with reducing the already limited minutes of KO, with the way he was playing (as he’s also a trade chip, except with positive value). WH also needs minutes. But the answer is not some idiotic 4 man rotation. That’s getting nobody minutes.
To the extent you want to increase a guy’s trade value by playing time, it should focus on guys who can actually be traded by the deadline (KO or even WH) for positive value.
Dolan’s gotta sell.