Keeping Jordan Hill's Contract Could Be Key to Knicks Signing James, Bosh, and Lee

So here it comes, the most exciting thing New York basketball has seen in a decade: the 2010 free agent class. Of course, it has come with a few monkey wrenches for Knick fans. First of all, a descending cap has made Donnie Walsh's vision much more difficult to attain. Then, David Lee went and played himself into an All-Star status that may make him much almost impossible to re-sign.

Now, Walsh is trying to free up some more cap space by moving Jarred Jeffries' contract for an expiring, but he is reportedly balking at the prospect of sending away a promising prospect in Jordan Hill. If Walsh really thinks he can retain Lee, sign Chris Bosh, sign LeBron James and of course has Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari on his roster, will Mike D'Antoni even have room for Hill on his bench? Perhaps Walsh's reported hesitation to move Hill has more to do with needing his contract than wanting to see him develop. Let me explain.

I've been pretty open in saying that I don't think the Knicks have a chance at LeBron James, but the fact of the matter is that Donnie Walsh seems to believe they do and that's all that matters here. Hypothetically, if the Knicks' summer goals are to sign James and Bosh while retaining Lee, here is how keeping Hill's contract on their books makes this possible.

The Knicks will have enough open cap space to sign LeBron James and of course they can use Lee's Bird rights to re-sign him, but then their cap space would be all used up so they couldn't sign any other max free agents unless they utilized a sign-and-trade.

If Bosh, as has been rumored, desires to leave Toronto, it may be in the Raptors' best interest to pursue a sign-and-trade. Now, if the Knicks are over the cap, they can only complete a deal like this if they take back less than $100,000 plus 125% of what they give away. In other words, to acquire a max contract free agent via sign-and-trade, they would have to give up about $13.5 million in salary in this deal. An obvious dump would be Eddy Curry's $11.3 million, but the additional $2.2 million gets a little tricky. You can't trade a player right when you acquire him unless it's part of a sign-and-trade and most $2 million players wouldn't gain much by being a part of this, so the Knicks would have to be dealing with an existing asset. That leaves your potential throw-ins as Gallo, Hill, and Chandler. If you deal Hill this season, you only have Gallo and Chandler left to use in this deal.

Now what's Toronto's upside to taking on an overpaid Eddy Curry? For starters, no one knows Curry's true value any more. Prior to injury and illness, he appeared to be a budding star, but several injuries and one Randolph later, that vision was lost. Now, Curry is reportedly in better shape, but not getting the opportunity to play. More than that though, is the fact that if the Knicks throw in cash considerations, Curry would only have to be overpaid in a cap sense, not in terms of actual money and with his contract expiring that might not be such a big deal. Getting a young talent like Hill along with perhaps a potential draft pick could make this very enticing for the Raptors if they think that they're going to lose Bosh anyhow.

This would leave the Knicks with a core of LeBron James, David Lee, Chris Bosh, Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Jared Jeffries, Toney Douglas, and maybe a guard signed with the MLE. That lineup just may live up to the hype that this summer has commanded.

It's a long shot, but the reality is that even if the Knicks shed Jeffries' contract, they still don't have enough cap space for two max free agents. Wouldn't it be funny if Donnie Walsh had already unofficially explored this idea with Bryan Colangelo and this whole T-Mac thing was just a smoke screen. I'm sure that Knick fans would love to see Walsh pull off a heroic move like this over the summer. I guess we'll have to wait and see.