$62 Million???

The New York Knicks are paying 62 million dollars this year to players no longer on the roster.  I have no idea what they're paying their active roster, but $62m is more than enough to field a serviceable NBA team, and it's being paid to guys getting another paycheck from another NBA team or in Europe, or just sitting around playing Halo.  In case anybody was wondering, this is why the league wants to reduce the number and scope of guaranteed contracts.  There are a lot of under-performing guys stuck on NBA benches because their contracts can't be moved and tie their team's hands under the salary cap.  They get paid, and I'm all for pro athletes facing risk of injury and with limited ability to choose their own employer getting some guaranteed money, but the fans suffer for watching a mediocre team with a poor personnel blend and no way to improve.

Like say the Timberwolves, who have made many unfortunate personnel choices, wasting years of a league MVP's career.  Apparently the strange trade last year, Wally Szczerbiak and Michael Olowokandi for Mark Blount and Ricky Davis, where the Wolves didn't improve at all but gave up an expiring contract and a onetime all-star for a warm body with years of guaranteed money ahead of him came down to it being the only way of getting rid of a couple of locker room cancers.  When the Vikings shipped out Randy Moss and Daunte Culpepper they didn't get equal value in those trades and arguably lowered the talent level of the team, but they did get the freedom to pursue other opportunities and built a tough defense over the next two off-seasons.  A poor personnel decision in the NFL is a missed opportunity, but a poor decision in the NBA means several years of missed opportunities, and any attempted remedy also has years of consequences.  Case in point, the trade with Boston is arguably a delayed consequence of the Marbury trade back in 1999, and also of not resigning Nesterovic in 2003.

And on the subject of trades, could Bulls fans quit raving about what a good move trading Charles Oakley for Bill Cartwright was?  Seriously, nobody's buying it.