Knicks Make a Very Rare Salary Dump

A salary dump? By the Knicks? Yes, apparently anything is possible in today’s NBA.As Hell’s denizens shoveled out from the blizzard, the Knicks waved bye-bye to forward Renaldo Balkman yesterday in a deal that ships him to Denver in return for a 2010 second-round draft pick and guards Bobby Jones and Taurean Green.What the Knicks get out of it, really, is just being rid of the obligation to pay Balkman. Both Jones and Green have contracts that aren’t guaranteed for the coming year, which is just as well since the Knicks have 17 players on their roster following the trade — two more than the league maximum of 15. Obviously, both players can expect to be waived in the coming days.By cutting Jones and Green and unloading Balkman, New York saves more than $2 million when luxury tax considerations are taken into account — even after including cash in the deal to help offset part of Balkman’s salary (reportedly $575,000, or nearly half of Balkman’s $1.32 million salary).The 2010 draft choice, meanwhile, will be the better of the Nuggets’ or the Clippers’. Don’t spend the next two years holding your breath, however, as second-round picks are near-worthless regardless of how high they are.As such, the trade essentially amounts to a rare salary dump by the Knicks. It off-loads a player who would be superfluous in Mike D’Antoni’s system — shooting and passing isn’t Balkman’s thing — while alleviating a roster issue created when they signed Anthony Roberson as their 16th player.It also, perhaps, hints at a larger issue at MSG — that they haven’t yet resolved to waive Stephon Marbury before the season starts. If they were intending to do so, surely it would seem unnecessary to bother with the jettisoning of Balkman, especially since he’s both a fairly useful player and, by Knicks’ standards, an extremely inexpensive one.Instead, it appears the Knicks want to hang on to the potential value of Marbury’s expiring contract as long as they can, even if he’s wildly unpopular in the locker room and could potentially poison the first months of D’Antoni’s reign.It’s probably a worthwhile gamble, too. While the Knicks are focused on getting under the salary cap in 2010, they can change the plan at a moment’s notice if a star player becomes available at the trade deadline, the way Pau Gasol did a year ago. In that event, Marbury’s expiring $21 million contract would be a massive carrot that team president Donnie Walsh can use to lure trading partners — which, in turn, explains why he’s still on the roster in Gotham, rather than embarking on his post-Knicks career in Italy.Unless, that is, there’s something much larger brewing in New York. Sometimes you’ll see a roster-clearing move like this made just before something much larger goes down — witness Philadelphia’s trade of Rodney Carney and Calvin Booth to Minnesota just before signing Elton Brand earlier this summer. While nothing is rumored to be brewing on New York’s end, one can at least wonder whether this is the prelude to something bigger.Even if it isn’t, there has to be a sense of relief here. The Knicks aren’t going to spend foolishly, even it’s “just” $2 million, and they aren’t going to keep around players who don’t fit into D’Antoni’s system, even if they might have a little value in somebody else’s. The Knicks aren’t going to win this trade in the sense of getting back more than they gave, but these are the kinds of moves that teams make to have the flexibility to do much bigger things down the road.As for the Nuggets, this is a pretty solid move by a franchise that has also started preaching the gospel of fiscal restraint. For the past two seasons, they had one of the league’s most expensive teams, spending well more than the luxury tax, but won just one playoff game in that time.As a result, they’re retrenching. They gave away center Marcus Camby to the Clippers earlier this summer in return for a second-hand snowboard and a lift pass at Vail. They also passed on retaining Eduardo Najera, who joined the Nets instead; they sold their first-round pick to the Charlotte Bobcats for another snowboard and some of those cool snow goggles; and their only free-agent pickups thus far, forwards Chris Andersen and Dahntay Jones, were minimum-wage acquisitions.Balkman is different because he’s effectively costing them a minimum salary, but he’s not a minimum player. Although he can’t shoot or create off the bounce, his insanely high energy in transition will be highly useful on a transition-oriented team like the Nuggets, who played the league’s fastest pace a year ago. As such, he’s a very useful bench acquisition that cost far less than free agents of similar quality.Incidentally, Balkman wasn’t the only local player to set sail yesterday — Nets restricted free-agent center Nenad Krstic appears all but delivered to a team in Russia. Unlike the loss of Boki Nachbar, who left a genuine hole in the bench rotation that Jarvis Hayes may or may not adequately fill, Krstic’s departure is not necessarily the worst thing from New Jersey’s perspective.After adding Eduardo Najera, Yi Jianlian, Brook Lopez, and Ryan Anderson, New Jersey’s frontcourt was starting to look awfully crowded, and with Krstic still looking unsteady in his comeback from a late 2006 knee injury, perhaps going overseas was the best option for all concerned.Additionally, he may be back before long. The Nets will retain Krstic’s rights, provided they make a qualifying offer, and since he’s reportedly mulling a two-year deal with an NBA opt-out after year one, it could work out that he shows he’s regained his spring from the knee injury and immediately rejoins the Nets, and everyone’s healthier and better from the experience. Keep in mind that New Jersey can still match any NBA offer made to Krstic as long as they make the qualifying offer, so if he wants back into the league, the Nets remain the only game in town for him.jhollinger@nysun.com

Knicks Make a Very Rare Salary Dump

Knicks Make a Very Rare Salary Dump

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