12:12 pm Jul. 12, 20123
It is an oddity of the byzantine rules governing the N.B.A.'s collective bargaining agreement that the New York Knicks might be better served by paying more money for Landry Fields, a badly flawed shooting guard, than by paying less money for a better player.
So while it is astonishing that the Toronto Raptors offered Landry Fields $20 million over three years, it might actually make sense for the Knicks to pay their restricted free agent that much money, too.
Let's start at the beginning of the Fields free-agent journey, way back on July 1. Fields was a surprise contributor to the Knicks in 2010-11 after getting drafted in the second round out of Stanford, and has started all but five Knicks games over his two years with the team.
But Fields faltered badly in his second season, with his three-point accuracy dropping from 39 percent, which is solid, to less than 26 percent, which is just awful, particularly for a shooting guard. Fields tinkered with his shot, producing more of a line-drive, and the results were ugly.
The idea that the Knicks would bring Fields back was an uncertain one, heading into July.
Then came the pursuit of Steve Nash from the Knicks. The idea was, the Knicks would build a sign-and-trade around Fields, helping Nash to receive the higher salary available in a matching salary swap.
So in an effort to checkmate the Knicks, the Raptors went and offered Fields a massive contract, much more than a below-average player over two seasons was worth. The idea was that Fields would have to agree, and the Knicks wouldn't be able to deal Fields for Nash.
As it turned out, the Lakers landed Nash, leaving the Raptors stuck with their inflated offer to Fields.
But the calculations are different for New York than they are for Toronto. By signing Fields, Toronto will give up precious cap space in the process, since he wasn't a Raptor player prior to this. But for the Knicks, who own Fields' early Bird rights, they can add him without suffering the cap space consequences.
The Knicks do need another shooting guard. The re-signed J.R. Smith is best served as a backup, so he can be utilized, or benched, depending on which Smith shows up that day. Iman Shumpert is scheduled to return from knee surgery, but not until January, and once he does, he'll be eased in slowly, in all likelihood.
So a player like Fields, particularly if he can find his shooting touch again, is a useful addition--tall, smart, a good rebounder, capable of penetrating and guarding the larger shooting guards. He really shouldn't be a starter, but someone needs to start at shooting guard for the Knicks.
And not only are the free agent alternatives out there uninspiring--Jodie Meeks, the recently-injured Raja Bell, etc.--but the Knicks can only offer them the veterans' minimum salary, around $1.4 million, or arrange a sign-and-trade with their last remaining contract for such purposes, Dan Gadzuric, which would up an offer to around $2.1 million. Exactly how enticing that can be is hard to say.
And the Knicks aren't getting much more flexibility than that anytime soon. The nature of their moves--from Jason Kidd to Marcus Camby, matching Jeremy Lin to retaining J.R. Smith and Steve Novak--has been to freeze the supporting cast in amber just as surely as the signing of Tyson Chandler last year finalized the Chandler/Amar'e Stoudemire/Carmelo Anthony core. These are your New York Knicks, for better or worse, for the next several years. And adding a player of significance beyond this group likely requires salary cap flexibility they no longer have.
In that context, the Knicks need to decide whether paying Landry Fields an exorbitant amount of money to see if he can regain his rookie season shooting touch is worth it. Considering they've done everything else to max out what they get from the Chandler/Stoudemire/Anthony core, it only makes sense to pay Landry Fields $20 million over the next three years.
In a wildly unpredictable N.B.A. offseason, that might be the most shocking turn yet.
hell no! fields sucks but if they can sign and trade him for mayo or foye then that would be great
Fields struggled in the 2nd half, but everybody goes through a slump at some point.
He can be more than effective when he gets rolling and Lin seems to motivate him to his best efforts.
They played great together and good chemistry should be kept if possible.
I hope they bring him back, he does increase our chances to win, and.. it's not my money.
No don't resign him. Woodson doesn't want him and Fields needs to be in a melo-less system. He saved us in the final 10 seconds of game 4 of the Heat series with his defense on Wade but Woodson never once mentioned his efforts on tv or in print. Fields needs to go to a team with ball movement and a point guard that has a high basketball IQ. ( That's not saying Lin or Kidd doesn't ) At the height of Linsanity Feb 4-15 Fields averaged 11 pts 6 reb 3 assist with no superstars on the floor. He and Lin had great chemistry but the team played for eachother and we were an exciting team to watch. Fields doesn't suck he's a good all around player who fills up the stat sheet, doesn't make a lot of mistakes but lot of people seem to be down on him. He was 1st team all rookie and rookie of the month twice. I don't feel we would be talking like this if Dolan had never made the Melo trade giving up so many young players and for a superstar who can't seem to make the sacriface needed to help make the team or his teamates better as we are only 8 games over 500 the last 2 years. I say let Fields go he will excell elsewhere and we can find someone for less money to pass the ball that is if Woodson will ever ever ever be creative enough to find more than 9 shots for Knovak ( 3 point leader last season ) in a playoff series as he only got 9 against the Heat. I don't hear anyone complaining about the money he got.