Derrick Rose, Carmelo Anthony, and maybe Joakim Noah all on the same team? Now all the Knicks need is a DeLorean with a flux capacitor to get back to 2011.
Anthony remains under contract and the Knicks made a big trade to upgrade at the point and get Rose from the Bulls. Now the Knicks are looking very likely to land long-time Bulls big man Joakim Noah, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.The New York Knicks have emerged as strong favorites to sign free-agent big man Joakim Noah, according to league sources.
Sources told ESPN.com that multiple teams interested in Noah have all but conceded already that the Knicks are his runaway preferred destination in free agency.
Since the Knicks shipped out Robin Lopez (currently a better player than Noah), they need a new big in free agency. Noah, a native New Yorker” is great in the locker room and he’s still fierce on the defensive end, but at 31 years old his body has started to betray him — he has missed 68 games in the past two seasons. Even when he does play the injuries and age show, he doesn’t move the same way and with the same athleticism that made him so special in the past. There are teams not chasing him because they think he is “done.”
How much will the Knicks offer Noah? More than $15 million a season? And for how many seasons? Noah is exactly the kind of player who gets overpaid — because a team pictures his past glories and not his current realities. The only question is will the Knicks be the team to do the overpaying, or will they strike a more reasonable deal (by this wild market’s standards)?
It’s going to be an interesting couple of days when the calendar flips to July 1.