Grade the Trade: 4-team trade proposal brings Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Knicks

Laying out a Trade to bring Giannis to New York

If anyone is paying attention to life in the NBA's new Collective Bargaining Agreement, then they know what the No. 1 impediment to a trade for the New York Knicks is going to be: money.

Not cash-on-hand, but rather the reality that the Knicks are hard-capped under the second luxury tax apron and have no margin to spare with their team salary. For them to take part in a trade, they will need to send out more money than they take back.

At the same time, the Milwaukee Bucks are currently over the second luxury tax apron, so they have to send out more money than they take back as well, and can only send out players one-at-a-time in a trade.

The Knicks solved that problem in the Karl-Anthony Towns trade by bringing in a third team and rerouting some of the salary from the deal to the Charlotte Hornets. That won't work in this situation for a myriad of reasons.

First, because the season has begun, teams can no longer sign-and-trade players, which is the trick the Knicks used to make both of their blockbuster trades this offseason happen. What's more, the Knicks can't trade their handful of young players to a third team, because they are needed to send to the Bucks as value for Antetokounmpo, because the Knicks are very nearly out of tradeable draft capital.

Keeping up so far? Here is where it gets even more complicated. The final reason this trade would be so difficult to figure out is that Karl-Anthony Towns actually makes more in salary that Giannis Antetokounmpo, $49.2 million for Towns vs $48.8 million for Antetokounmpo.

That means that the only way for the Knicks to build a trade involving Towns for Antetokounmpo is to get Milwaukee all of the way under the second luxury tax apron. That would mean the Bucks are allowed to send out multiple players in a deal, and can shed enough salary to make a trade legal.

Milwaukee is roughly $6.5 million over the second apron, so the Knicks would have to find a taker for $6.5 million plus whatever other salary the Knicks send to the Bucks as value in the trade. Including young players such as Tyler Kolek or Jericho Sims adds to that salary bill.

Ideally one team could just take on all of the needed salary in the deal, but the Knicks don't have much to incentivize other teams and they used up one potential trade partner when Charlotte helped out with the first Towns trade.

Is it possible? Yes, but it involves making this a four-team trade, and the Knicks squeezing every last drop out of their asset pool. Here is the deal, as first published on our sister site Hoops Habit, drawing in the Toronto Raptors and Chicago Bulls to build a deal that is legal and in the realm of possibility:

The Trade Details

Knicks receive: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Delon Wright

Bucks receive: Karl-Anthony Towns, Jericho Sims, Tyler Kolek, Pacome Dadiet, 1 first-round pick, four seconds

Raptors receive: Pat Connaughton, 2 seconds (from NYK)

Bulls receive: Marjon Beauchamp

The Bucks would restock the cupboards with young talent and begin building a new chapter of basketball around Karl-Anthony Towns, likely moving on from Brook Lopez and Khris Middleton in subsequent deals. The Knicks add another superstar in Giannis Antetokounmpo and take on Delon Wright to fill a roster slot and provide needed backcourt depth. The Toronto Raptors get a pair of seconds to take on Pat Connaughton's two remaining years of salary, while the Chicago Bulls take a flier on MarJon Beauchamp.

Does this trade work for all parties involved? Should the Knicks make this deal if it's available to them?