The Marbury Jam

Why the Knicks Can't Let Go of Marbury

It's summertime, the time of year when basketball fans sit back and play armchair GM. So far, there has been a little bit to talk about with the relocation of Baron Davis, Elton Brand, and Corey Maggette. There is still some speculation left to discuss with the futures of Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, and Emeka Okafur still in doubt. And, of course, for Knick fans there is the epic Stephon Marbury dilemma.

The Knicks find themselves in quite a pickle with Marbury. The general consensus in the New York media is that Marbury is a locker room cancer and that his presence alone hurts the Knicks' chances at winning, but the problem is that his contract makes him virtually untradeable. Before any of us jump the gun as armchair GM's, let's take a look at the three options: trade him, release him, and keep him.

Why the Knicks Can't Trade Marbury

The Knicks can't trade Marbury simply because the numbers don't work. Marbury is set to make almost $22 million in 2008-2009 and no cellar dwelling team is going to want to take on that contract. The fact of the matter is that the only teams who would be willing to take a $22 million chance on Marbury would be teams with a legitimate chance at a championship now. The problem with that is, of the teams with the ten best records in the league last year, none of them have the ability to take on Marbury's contract.

The Pistons, Hornets, Spurs, Suns, Jazz, Rockets, and Mavericks have Chauncey Billups, Chris Paul, Tony Parker, Steve Nash, Deron Williams, Steve Francis, and Jason Kidd respectively. This means that even if any of these teams could pull off a trade that would work under the rules of the salary cap, they wouldn't have a need to, so it's not worth talking about.

The other three teams in last year's top ten are all over the salary cap. According to the rules of the salary cap, this means that they cannot acquire more than 125% plus $100,000 of the salary they trade away. More specifically, to take on Marbury's salary of $21,937,500, they would have to trade away at least $17,470,000 in salary.