And he’s due for a big pay raise, which means he’s a base-year compensation player. His salary for trade purposes is only half of what he actually signs for.

Here’s an explanation from Celtics Blog (they use Leon Powe as an example, but sub in Lee and it still applies).

Essentially, what this means is that for purposes of trades, you only count 50% of the player’s actual salary as outgoing salary for trade purposes. However, the team trading for the BYC player has to count 100% of his actual salary for incoming purposes.

I know that’s confusing as heck, so let me use an example. Let’s say we want to trade Leon for a player making $7 million. We thus intend to sign Leon to a one-year, $7 million contract. Here’s how that breaks down under BYC rules:

Boston trades: Leon Powe ($7 million salary * 50% reduction = $3.5 million)
Boston receives: $7 million player

The trade cannot go through, because the $3.5 million and $7.0 million salaries don’t “match” within 125% + $100k.

Couldn’t we just sign Leon to a $14 million expiring contract to complete the trade, then? No. Here’s why not:

Boston trades: Leon ($14 million salary * 50% reduction = $7.0 million)
Boston receives: $7 million player

So far so good, right? However, the next step kills it:

Team X trades: $7 million player
Team X receives: Leon Powe ($14 million salary, with no reduction)

Thus, once again, the salaries don’t “match”. Base year compensation makes it very difficult (although not impossible) for players to be traded in the first year of contracts where they saw a substantial raise.

Do we really want to pay someone eight or ten million dollars to come off the bench behind Antawn Jamison?

Mike James + Songaila + Pech to Orlando for God. He led JJ’s Magic to the NBA Finals, so if we bring him in and pair him with Gilbert, we could make a serious title run.

didn’t realize the specifics of a sign and trade. I just saw that the Knicks were shopping him because they wanted to get further under the cap next year. As far as the Lee and Jamison comparison, they are two completely different players. While Jamison gives you more scoring, and he does get rebounds, he is not a true PF. We need someone who will camp out around the basket. As much as Haywood has improved, he will never be more than an average player. Meaning we need a PF who will stay inside full time, rather than drift to the perimeter and lead the team in 3 pt attempts. That’s on offense. On defense, we need someone who can guard a Bosh, Duncan, Stoudemire, or Brand type. A banger. So yes, I would gladly take Lee over Jamison, especially given the age disparity.
  To expand on this, I would NOT take Jordan Hill. The last thing we need is another front court player who “needs to put on weight.”

Lee would add something lacking on the interior on the wiz, an instinctive garbage player. Blatche, JaVale, think offense first.

but his price is going to astronomical, and Songalia will give you 1/2 to 3/4 of his production. Also, the Knicks are going to want a king’s ransom for him, based on his popularity. A more likely target for a sign and trade with NY (though hopefully not with the Wiz) would be Nate Robinson.

lest you take jeffries and someone who plays basketball.*

*robinson, lee, gallinari, chandler not included

an oymoron. Nobody’s played basketball on the Knicks since Allan Houston left.