| | By Andy Katz
ESPN.com
The New York Knicks and Seattle SuperSonics continued their talks all day on Wednesday without finishing a deal involving Patrick Ewing for Vin Baker, largely
because the Knicks were holding out hope they could still land Glen Rice from the Los Angeles Lakers in a sign-and-trade scenario, sources told ESPN.com.
Sources said Knicks general manager Scott Layden and Sonics GM Wally Walker
have agreed to continue talking Wednesday night to make the Ewing-Baker deal work. Sources said both teams feel they have essentially passed the point of no return in the proposed Ewing-for-Baker trade.
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Mon., Aug. 21
This might enable Patrick Ewing to get the kind of contract he wants to finish out his career from the Sonics. Patrick wants to play for three more years, but the Knicks were never thinking of giving him three years. They were looking to get younger and more versatile and this trade would enable them to do that. Patrick is going to a team with lots of young guys for whom he can be a role model and mentor.
And he'll still give them pretty good production. Even at this stage in his career, Patrick can put up 15 and 10; the Sonics can certainly use that. Patrick never felt appreciated in New York; he always bore the brunt of criticism when the team didn't do as well as the fans expected. It might be a relief for Patrick to get out of New York and into Seattle where they're going to welcome him with open arms.
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Agent David Falk has been involved with the meetings on Wednesday with both teams to try and get the deal done, and he is now telling other NBA teams that a deal will happen
Meanwhile, the Knicks covet Rice and need the Lakers to agree to a deal. The Lakers wanted Detroit's Christian Laettner in the originally proposed four-team, 13-player deal, but the Pistons are entertaining an offer for Laettner from Dallas that will
include the Mavericks' Cedric Ceballos and likely forward John Wallace and point guard Eric Murdock. Sources tell ESPN.com that this 3-for-1 deal or another in some form is expected to be completed within a week.
Sources said the Lakers aren't as interested in sending Rice to New York without being able to get Laettner. To get Rice, the Knicks would have to come up with another tantalizing power forward to complete a three-team deal.
The Pistons backed out of the four-team deal late Monday night after
hearing Dallas' offer. The team also was concerned with the imbalance of the original deal and the inability to make the numbers work of adding seven players'
contracts, sources said.
Sources said Walker was frustrated after the deal couldn't be completed Tuesday. The Sonics want to finish the deal to land Ewing and then
get Los Angeles Clippers free agent power forward Maurice Taylor. Ewing, Taylor and Rice are all represented by David Falk.
A number of NBA sources said Ewing and Baker would have a hard time
going back to their original teams after they were essentially deemed
expendable. So, too, did at least one agent.
"I fully expect them to do the deal and figure out a way to get Patrick Ewing in Seattle and Vin Baker in New York," Aaron Goodwin, Baker's agent, told ESPN.com
Tuesday. "From Vin's perspective, it's an accurate statement (that the deal
is past the point of no return). He's been looking forward to the
opportunity. He feels unwanted in Seattle and wants to move on."
Sources within the NBA said the deal was agreed upon in principle by
early evening Monday before Detroit pulled out. Goodwin said he's confident
that the two teams can make this deal happen without a third team. Goodwin
is hoping the deal gets done by Wednesday with Baker scheduled to leave for
Hawaii, where he will meet up with the Olympic Dream Team.
The Sonics are hoping the Knicks will finish the deal and
pursue Rice on their own if they can't get the Lakers on board.
Goodwin said he's confident the deal would have been completed had it not been leaked to the media.
|  | | Ewing may not be capable of scoring 25 points a game, but he remains productive. |
"You take the risk of hurting players' feelings when that happens," Goodwin said. "But they can make this work as a two-team trade."
Goodwin said he was told by both teams that the deal should be done by late Tuesday or Wednesday morning.
"We need to know as soon as possible," Goodwin said.
Concerning Laettner, sources said Dallas has more valuable players that it could send to Detroit than Seattle in a three-way trade with the Sonics and Knicks. Detroit might end up doing a separate trade with Dallas now that the mega deal hasn't worked out.
If the Ewing for Baker deal is complete, the Sonics will turn their attention to signing Taylor. If the Sonics get Ewing and Taylor, regardless of what happens with Detroit, the Lakers and Dallas, then the Sonics will have accomplished their goals in this trade.
In the original trade, the Pistons were going to trade Laettner to the Lakers, while Detroit would have received Vernon Maxwell (from the Sonics), Lazaro Borrell (Sonics), Greg Foster (Sonics) and Vladimir Stepania (Sonics), John
Celestand (Lakers), Tyronn Lue (Lakers) and David Wingate (Knicks). The Pistons also were due a future No. 1 draft choice from the Lakers and Knicks, as well as some cash.
"The Knicks were going to give the Pistons money, and the whole deal was about to be done," an Eastern Conference team official told The New York Times, "but the contracts became a mess. There were just too many red flags."
The Lakers had agreed to send Rice and Travis Knight to the
Knicks in a sign-and-trade deal for Dudley.
Sources said Taylor was intrigued with the prospect of playing with Ewing in Seattle. But without Ewing and Rice on the move, Falk might not send Taylor to the Sonics. Seattle would sign Taylor to its $2.5 million salary exception. It is believed that the Rockets are also pushing to get Taylor.
Sources said any sign-and-trade deals involving the Sonics, Lakers and
Knicks, could also include the Knicks' second-round draft choice Lavor Postell.
Ewing, 38, is entering the final year of a four-year, $60 million
contract and wants an extension for at least two more seasons.
But the Sonics might only sign Taylor and Ewing to one-year contracts (fulfilling Ewing's final year) before pursuing extensions with either
player.
Detroit was trying to find a creative way in which to make itself competitive over the next several years. The best way for the Pistons to
achieve that goal was to acquire players with one year left on their contracts in order to free up salary-cap room to bid for free agents such as Chris Webber and Dikembe Mutombo next summer.
Before negotiating the four-team deal, the Knicks had initiated talks with the Washington Wizards late last week. Michael Jordan, the Wizards president of basketball operations, told the Washington Post on Monday that the Knicks offered Ewing and four other players for a variety of packages from the Wizards. The Post reported the Knicks' proposals included Juwan Howard, Mitch Richmond, Rod Strickland and Isaac Austin, although Jordan declined comment on that aspect of the discussions.
Jordan said he quickly ended the talks because he did not want to gut the nucleus of the Wizards.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. | |
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