The Knicks Signed Tim Hardaway Jr. To A 71 Million Dollar Offer Sheet, And Must Really, Really Hate Their Fans

Tim Hardaway Jr. was traded for Jerian Grant who was traded for Derrick Rose who was renounced so NYK could sign Hardaway Jr. for $71M.

— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) July 7, 2017

Annnd all it took was a week and a half for the incompetence of the New York Knicks to completely restore the tattered legacy of the senile old man whose idea of team building was taking a sledgehammer to their organization infrastructure. Okay, so maybe Phil Jackson can't be left completely off the hook for doing such a bad job that he made James goddamn Dolan look like a heroic figure upon his firing. Still, it has to be considered a win that the team he actively tanked is trying to tie a 71 million dollar brick to their foot instead of coming up for air. 

To be quite honest, on the surface I don't hate this decision as much as most people. Paying top dollar for a pure scorer whose barely average at scoring is inherently a silly decision, but it's not like there will be any superstars fighting tooth and nail to get max contracts from a sports franchise that's run like a circus any time soon. That doesn't mean you should be backing up the truck to the doorstep of every Tom, Dick, and Legacy that can average double digit points at a below average clip for a brutal team, but it does mean it likely won't hamstring their immediate future.

What makes this decision so much worse in theory than it is in execution is that the all the New York Knicks needed to do was trade Carmelo Anthony for literally anyone that either has a pulse or could hypothetically have a pulse in the future then lock themselves in a closet until October to appease their fans. Honestly, that's how low the bar was for a successful offseason was. Excommunicate the executive who has two fists full of championship rings, cut ties with one of the best - albeit beleaguered - scorers in the NBA, and design a game plan that allows Kristaps Porzingis to do literally whatever the fuck he wants at all times. If they had done just that they would have gotten a reaction that had the casual observer pinching himself thinking that Willis Reed just hobbled back out onto the court with a broken leg during Game 7. 

Instead they decided to create one of the worst optics in sports history by offering 1,000 dollars on the 6 cents they originally made on the same damn asset. The blindly run organization that oddly enough would have benefited from playing possum just bit the bullet on a bear of a contract for no apparent reason, and now has to pray that another team is dumb enough to do the same. The Knicks are to moronic decisions what a set of keys is to a baby...if that baby couldn't tell the difference between a set of keys and a basket full of steak knives. That actually makes me feel bad for their battered and beaten fanbase that - at this point - has to consider no news to be the best kind of news.