Those of you who have been following the “Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks” saga closely know that owner James Dolan has jumped into the negotiations with both feet, and some sources are reporting that disgraced former GM Isiah Thomas has the owner’s ear. Ken Berger summarizes the impact that this has had on the negotiations:
The Knicks’ willingness to part with three starting players — Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari and Raymond Felton — plus Eddy Curry’s expiring contract and a first-round pick from another team, marked a significant departure from the patient strategy employed by team president Donnie Walsh. And sources told CBSSports.com Saturday that the involvement of Dolan, leaning on the advice of former team president Isiah Thomas, could call into question Walsh’s willingness to remain with the team beyond this season…..
Walsh and coach Mike D’Antoni are opposed to giving up multiple starters for Anthony, knowing they can get him as a free agent. That option, or negotiating a more reasonable trade without having to compete with New Jersey’s better offer, would have given Walsh more flexibility to build around Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire.
“If they give up Wilson Chandler and Gallo, they’re basically giving up the farm,” one person connected to the talks said. “Melo, Amar’e and throw-ins — you’re not going to win in the East that way.”
The Knicks had all of the leverage in the negotiations, as it seemed clear that the Nuggets had few options and that Carmelo was not willing to sign an extension in New Jersey. Instead of using that leverage and pushing this matter all the way to the deadline, at which point the Nuggets may have been forced to take a subpar deal, James Dolan jumped in and destroyed his GM’s carefully constructed bargaining position. He sweetened the Knicks’ offer well before it was necessary to do so, and has put the Nuggets back in the drivers seat by allowing them to shop the Knicks offer and request more as the deadline approaches. Dolan’s involvement has clearly made things more difficult for the Knicks in this process.
The lesson that the Yankees can learn from this debacle is obvious. This offseason, ownership meddled in baseball operations for the first time since the A-Rod contract, and it resulted in a exorbitant 3 year deal for a reliever. The move seemed to have been made largely out of the wish to salvage the offseason, which is always a dangerous path to take when making baseball ops decisions. While the deal represents just one overruling of Cashman and there is nothing to suggest that it will happen again, I have to imagine that the Soriano deal has placed the Yankee front office on a very slippery slope. When you give the Randy Levines and Hank Steinbrenners of the world a taste of the GM’s duties, you risk them attempting to repeat the same gambit the next time an offseason begins to look poor. While I am sure they are all excellent business minds and intelligent human beings, that does not qualify them to be making baseball decisions. The Yankees experienced a lot of dysfunction in the middle of the last decade due to decision-making factions in the front office, and heading back in that direction would be a terrible mistake.
The NBA is a bit different than MLB, in that the salary cap dictates that one or two missteps can alter the course of a NBA franchise for many years. As such, Dolan pushing himself into the Carmelo Anthony trade talks will likely have a greater impact than any single move the Yankee front office makes can have. But the general point remains the same: ownership meddling in team building operations is rarely a good thing, and should be avoided at all costs.
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Signing Soriano was a move made to save the offseason and puts the Yankees down a slippery slope? puh-leez
more like addressing a related weakness (the rotation) by adding a quality bullpen arm to soak up all the 4 inning starts Mitre or Garcia will provide. It was a lot for a bullpen arm sure but it didnt come out of your bank account…
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Moshe Mandel Reply:
February 20th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Cashman basically said so himself. There is a reason Cashman was against the move.
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Steve S. Reply:
February 20th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
That’s because Cashman knows when you make moves for other than baseball reasons, you generally regret them. ‘Saving the offseason’ and/or ‘selling tickets’ would be two such reasons.
Brian said it at the breakfast, and I’ll repeat it again. When you get the baseball right, the other stuff takes care of itself. I’ll add that when you get the baseball wrong (ex: expensive long term deals for relievers) and things go bad, you’ll never hear the end of it. Especially with the intense media coverage and high expectations the Yanks have in this town.
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Moshe Mandel Reply:
February 20th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
And even if it was a good signing, overruling the GM is still a bad move.
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Steve S. Reply:
February 20th, 2011 at 7:29 pm
Why have a GM? Just let the owner run the team and hire a lawyer to draw up the contracts.
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Please, no more comparing of the Knicks and Yankees.
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Moshe Mandel Reply:
February 20th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Hopefully I never have the opprtunity again.
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Scout Reply:
February 20th, 2011 at 4:39 pm
Amen.
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Great post, Moshe. And it’s funny you wrote about this today because I also commented on the similarities between the Yanks and Knicks with this Carmelo situation.
Bottom line is, owners should own and just stay in the suite and the general managers should manage.
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I disagree with the comparison. The two deals are completely different, and what ownership did in the Yankee’s situation didn’t change Cashman’s negotiating situation one bit. It cost them money and a draft choice.
I think that the only way this affects Cash at all is if they add Soriano’s salary to Cash’s budget, and he had nothing to spend it on, anyway.
I think it was as reasonable a move as giving 7 very expensive years to a 32 years old pitcher, tho’ the opt out stuff is kind of strange. (Just like it is in CC’s contract.)
I like having Soriano on the team-we now have a BP that can shorten games by a few innings to go along with our world class offense (especially if Montero gets 400 PAs.).
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Moshe Mandel Reply:
February 20th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
I never meant it to be a perfect parallel, just to caution what meddling can result in. The Knicks situation clearly worse.
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T.O Chris Reply:
February 20th, 2011 at 9:30 pm
Carmelo also can mean a lot more to the Knicks than Soriano ever can for the Yankees, even if he is a 3 year all star and closes in the final year he won’t be able to single handely make us a playoff team but Melo and Amare can do that with the Knicks. It also is the 2nd move in guaranteeing Chris Paul signs with you after next season and building a threesome to beat the Heat.
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Steve S. Reply:
February 20th, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Pep, this is after all a Yankee blog. One has to tie things into the Yanks in these parts. I didn’t find it to be too much of a stretch.
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I really can’t see comparing these two situations since they have totally different values and based on the difference one player can make in the NBA a baseball move will never be the same in my opinion.
In basketball if you 1 or 2 superstars you can compete for a title yearly without fail in baseball you have to have a full team so I can’t really compare a setup man/closer to the leading scorer in the NBA. If there is any time to get involved it’s in a deal to get a player who could take you from nothing to the playoffs and maybe beyond if they add CP3.
I also think you are overlooking the aspect that Carmelo isn’t garuanteed to not sign this extension, either with Denver or the Nets, he stands to lose some 30 million or more possibly over the life of the same contract next season and I simply don’t believe he will be willing to do that. If the Knicks can’t get this done I think he OKs a trade to the Nets and I believe that was always going to be the case.
Are you really letting Felton and some role players get in the way of adding peice 2 to your “New York Big 3″ I wouldn’t and I personally believe a trifecta of Paul, Anthony and Amare to be better than Wade, LeBron and Bosh because you have a distributor, a scorer and a big man and there is no confusion as to what everyones role is coming in.
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I understand the thought about owners not meddling when you’re trading away more players than Walsh thinks you should-he’s quite a bit smarter than Isaiah or Dolan. I just think signing Soriano (as opposed to trading for him) only cost money and a late 1st round pick. Heck, I’m one of the people that didn’t want to trade for Lee if it involved Montero-I understand the Gm being the one who decides when you want to trade a player away.
But I think the brass signing a FA is different-Cashman signing him might have backfired (especially to the deal he ended up with). This way if the deal goes south, it’s not on Cashman. It’s like when The Boss signed Reggie-if that had gone bad, the GM doesn’t get scorched.
If I’m Cashman, I’m fine with it-it’s their money, and if they want to overpay somebody to make sure he’s in pinstripes it’s no skin off my nose.
As a fan, I like the move. He’s a good pitcher and will likely get a lot of key outs for NYY. Giving up money and a first rounder is worth it (especially after looking at the success rate of first rounders over the past ten years-wow.)
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Steve S. Reply:
February 21st, 2011 at 6:43 am
Don’t dismiss late 1st round picks. The last time the Yanks gave up their 1st round pick was the 2009 draft as compensation for Tex. The Angels selected a guy named Mike Trout, who is currently ranked as the best prospect in all of baseball by most outlets.
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