New York Knicks Could Be Targeting Pau Gasol
The New York Knicks and new team president Phil Jackson are currently doing what they can to hang onto Carmelo Anthony, who opted out of the final year of his contract at $23.3 million and will officially become a free agent this Tuesday. ESPN sources are saying that Jackson and the Knicks are somewhat optimistic about Anthony sticking it out in New York, and also that Jackson wants to pursue Los Angeles Lakers forward Pau Gasol to work alongside Anthony.
Jackson had already begun his adjusting process in this week’s trade that sent Tyson Chandler and Raymond Felton to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for Jose Calderon, Samuel Dalembert, Wayne Ellington, Shane Larkin, and two second-round picks in Thursday night’s draft (Knicks selected Cleanthony Early at #34 and Thanasis Anteokounmpo at #51 with those picks). In terms of the trade, here were some of Jackson’s remarks,
Well, we want to send a message to all of our players that we are on the move and we are making changes and we are making changes to move forward in the direction that we want to go. We want to be more aggressive defensively, we want to have a certain sense of offensive alacrity, getting up and down the court and challenging defenses to get back and protect the basket.
And on his confidence in Anthony staying despite not having any real cap space until 2015,
We really don’t know. With LeBron getting in this free agency … we don’t know what all that means. But we have every confidence that Carmelo is good for what his word is, that he wants to be in New York, he likes playing in New York, he wants to compete, he wants to be part of a playoff team that is competitive toward a championship.
Well when it comes to Tyson Chandler, “offensive alacrity” has certainly never been his strong suit. As it pertains to Pau Gasol, the exact opposite and apparently desired replacement for Chandler, Jackson needs skilled enough post players to work the triangle offense effectively with Anthony, much like he orchestrated with Gasol alongside Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom, and Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles. Ironically, Odom is at the Knicks facility this summer working on a comeback.
As of right now the Knicks couldn’t offer Gasol anything close to appropriate for his services (less than $4 million next season). Who knows if the Zen Master has other plans brewing. There was the rumor of a potential blockbuster sign-and-trade involving Anthony, but nothing has since re-surfaced. Anthony has said that he will in fact visit Chicago, Houston, and Dallas during the free agency period. The sweepstakes officially begin on Tuesday.
