Three, the old-fashioned way

Three events seem to have changed the way NBA GMs currently think about team management:

1. Summer of 2007: the Boston Celtics trade for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, who team up with lifetime Celtic Paul Pierce to create the original “Big 3.” They immediately won the 2008 “Anything is Possible” Championship and have been perennial contenders since.

2. February 1, 2008: the LA Lakers trade for Pau Gasol, who joins Kobe Bean Bryant and the inconsistently very good Lamar Odom to form, I suppose, “The Triangle” that has won the past two NBA Championships, including last season’s “I Want to Thank My Therapist” Championship.

3. July 8, 2010: LeBron James takes his talents to South Beach, where lifetime Heat Dwyane Wade and the newly acquired Chris Bosh were waiting to form what I’ve dubbed “Two Men and a Baby” and to win the latest “Championship Awarded Before the Season Starts” Championship.

One event that might reset the way NBA GMs think about team management:

1. Sometime today or maybe even tomorrow (still uncertain when): Carmelo Anthony is officially traded to the Knicks to join Amar’e Stoudemire and the potentially unfulfilled promise of Chris Paul/Deron Williams/Dwight Howard to win the “Might Reset the Way NBA GMs Think about Team Management” Championship.

To reiterate, Anthony isn’t even officially on the team yet, but rumors are already flying about who will join him in 2012 to form David Stern’s favorite trio of superstars in New York.

But, according to this (Insider) report from ESPN’s Chad Ford and this much more detailed but slightly less pessimistic column from New York Times’ Nate Silver, there may be a significant hurdle between Anthony’s first Knicks appearance and his second All-Star teammate.

That hurdle is the same one the NFL is facing with ‘round-the-clock coverage: the collective bargaining agreement.

According to Ford and Silver, the new NBA CBA, which is an awkward name, should lower the salary cap from this season’s $58 million. In 2012, again according to Ford and Silver, the Knicks will owe roughly $44 million to Stoudemire (at about $20 million), Anthony (at about $20 million), Renaldo Balkman, and Toney Douglas, which means they couldn’t afford another max contract at the current rate (about $20 million per year) without some of the cap loopholes that Silver can tell you more about (including the Lakers payroll of about $92 million).

(According to Wikipedia and my own calculations, which are a much worse sources than Ford or Silver, the Heat’s big three average $18.21 million per year, with Wade taking a little less and Bosh and LeBron earning a little more, for about $54.63 million.)

So, here’s why I think this Knicks drama will and/or should reset the way that NBA GMs put together teams:

1. We’re running out of superstars. Silver calculates that there are ten legitimate superstars in the NBA (including only four of the players mentioned above). But even with a more generous definition of superstar or star – say for example the 25 All-Stars from last weekend, the league’s a bit shy of the 150 it would take to populate all 30 teams with 3 stars each.

2. Spending your entire salary cap on just 25% of the roster is a bit absurd anyway. Obviously, this essentially happened with the Heat, and it could potentially happen with the Knicks, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a good idea. Some owners and GMs, I would imagine, would just balk at this idea outright.

3. Depending on how the CBA works out, the salary cap may not leave room for three max contracts (which technically isn’t possible now). Even though the players’ union is presumably about unity, I don’t necessarily think they will want to lower the max contract amount proportionately to the salary cap. So, let’s say the salary cap drops from $58 million to $45 million. Are the max contracts going to drop to $15 million? That’s a 25% drop, which might be a hard sell to players who probably think they’re worth more than $20 million anyway. It’s much easier to see the lowering of the salary cap as a dissipated, less personal, egalitarian concession.

4. Number 4: franchise tags, something the owners are evidently also asking for in the new CBA. This would immediately and almost absolutely prevent the kind of free agent ship-jumping that lead to The Heatles, as Wikipedia calls them. I guess, maybe – and it’s a long shot, the NBA might not franchise tag Paul if they still own the Hornets by 2012, but it’s hard to imagine Howard or Williams being freed to go if the franchise tag is an option.

Of course, GMs could form their triumvirates the old-fashioned way: by drafting and cultivating talent, like the Spurs did (Tim Duncan, #1 overall in 1997; Manu Ginobli, 57^th in 1999; Tony Parker, 28^th in 2001). That only led to three NBA Championships (the first with retiring David Robinson) in 6 years, including 2007’s “Even LeBron Isn’t Good Enough to Win a Championship on His Own” Championship.

Question of the Day:

If the NBA does allow the franchise tag option, which team will have the toughest decision to make?

My take: For a lot of teams (Cleveland and Toronto come to mind), the toughest decision might be: should we even use the franchise tag? So, I thought about picking one of those teams, but I’m going Golden State. David Lee seems to be settling into a good-but-not-great production scale, but Monta Ellis and Steph Curry present a veritable (hypothetical) conundrum.