The Knicks and Kings reportedly agreed to a trade on Wednesday that will bring Quincy Acy to New York. The Knicks will also receive Travis Outlaw in the deal, while sending Jeremy Tyler’s non-guaranteed contract, Wayne Ellington, and a 2016 2nd-round pick to Sacramento.
The Knicks had reportedly been eager to move Ellington, who they had received in the Jose Calderon deal. They had considered trading Pablo Prigioni just to get rid of Ellington, but when this deal popped up, they decided it was a better option. Prigioni reportedly still might be traded, but the Knicks are not “desperate” to move him. It is unclear why the Knicks did not just cut Ellington, but they are in that gray area of the salary cap world where saving a couple million dollars here and there can open up some pretty sneaky options for further roster-building.
However, the Knicks are not directly dumping salary here. Instead, they are using their overall financial advantage, and the Kings’ deficiency in that area, to help make a deal happen. The Kings are expected to waive Tyler, and possibly Ellington as well (using the stretch provision), so this might just be a case of the Kings looking to save a bit of money and open up some roster spots.
Acy, 23, is an undersized power forward who makes up for his 6’7, 230 pound frame with his hustle, intensity, and athleticism. Acy, who was part of the Rudy Gay trade last season, has great leaping and dunking abilities, is a good rebounder, and has a decent touch on his jumper. He is probably a more polished version of Tyler, although he might have a bit less upside.
Outlaw, 29, signed a big contract with the Nets a few years back, which became a disaster after his game went into severe decline. Outlaw still has what it takes to be a pretty decent forward, but this is more of a “flier”, as Travis has to prove on the court that he can bounce back and regain some of his game.
I’m not sure what the exact reasoning for this trade is, but it seems like a pretty decent one. I’ll miss Tyler, giving up picks is annoying in general, and I had heard Ellington could shoot the ball, but I think we’re all really going to like Acy, who was a fan favorite back in Sacramento. And you never know about Outlaw. Let’s see if Phil Jackson has anything else planned.
-Tommy Rothman
New York Knicks Memes 
NBAgeek:You are correct as I had not done the saarly calculations correctly. Thus, Memphis could not have retained Calderon unless Toronto had given them someone else (Landry Fields) as the difference in sending out Gay and receiving Calderon, left Memphis with more than a 10% difference in salaries plus the extra $100,000 that is permitted to make NBA trades. Memphis had initially also wanted Toronto to take the contract of Darrel Arthur so that again would have required Memphis taking more back more from Toronto or why Memphis needed the third team involved since there is more leeway with trade restriction cap space if more teams are used.Max:You mentioned that Memphis was not trying to free up cap space. Because the NBA saarly cap for 2012/13 is $58.044 million, while the luxury tax line is $70.307 million, I too don’t believe that Memphis had any ideas of reducing their salaries so that they would have saarly cap space. I don’t know where you got the idea that I wrote Memphis was trying to get below the saarly cap as I never mentioned saarly cap in my post. I did happen to mention luxury tax threshold because the new owners were quite clear that they had no intentions of wanting to pay the prohibitive punitive punishment for going over the luxury tax threshold.. As of today, Memphis’s player salaries are at roughly $62, about $8 million below the luxury tax line and if they kept Speights and Ellington that would have added $6.283 for a total of roughly $68.3 which is still $2 million below the luxury tax line. With Speights and Ellington making small salaries, the Grizzlies may have lost more by no longer having them on the team. Without Ellington, there is no shooting guard coming off the bench. With Gasol, Randolph, Arthur and Davis, one of them is bound to get hurt some time during the season so only three of them will be available. I would have liked to have kept Speights. But the biggest issue was giving up a #1 pick in the draft. Cleveland made out like bandits.Had Memphis taken back Landry Fields with Calderon and Davis, then they would have needed to drop the saarly of Speights, but since Memphis sent out players in yesterday’s trade totaling $17.7 million for this year and only accepted salaries of $12 million for this year, they saved $5.7 on this deal and then saved another $6.283 on the other deal. That is about a $12 million savings in Memphis this year by this these deals.
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Why on earth would they give up another pick? Duck Folan.
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