Obviously theres a big debate at the 4, but this makes us much weaker at the 3 and 5

How would the numbers even work out?

We’d throw in VladRad.

I’m also not too fond of the idea of having ReggieWTF as our only small forward…

If they’re throwing in Kelenna, having already dumped Maggs, you have to think even as clueless as this FO is, that they have some kind of a deal for a small forward in the pipeline. Could be just an MLE signing; though my hope is that it would involve dumping for Monta for either Iguodala, Kirilenko, or Childress. Anyone other than those three doesn’t excite me.

Much as I love Lee, I still basically loathe this deal, for all the reasons people have mentioned. To recap…

1. Thanks to fathead Nelson and the stupid ankle injury, we haven’t had nearly enough observation time to get a read on this kid’s ceiling. Can we at least give our young potential stud a full freaking season’s worth of data before giving up on him? I suppose it’s possible that Nellie and Riley have seen something in Randolph’s game or personality that, based on their years of experience, they see as a real impediment to his stardom. I just can’t buy that they’ve seen enough of it to take such a momentous decision. 20. Years. Old. Like BlueintheFace, I don’t want to have to spend the next ten years praying Randolph doesn’t succeed. I have better things to do with my time … I think.

2. The Knicks have zero leverage in this deal, beyond potential competitive offers from other teams. Obviously they’re going to cite potential competitive offers from other teams to give themselves the appearance of leverage. I think we need to hold firm to “anybody but freaking Randolph and Curry” and call their bluff. If they find a better offer for Lee, so be it.

3. Regardless of specifics, lame duck retread GMs really shouldn’t be making such momentous decisions about the future of the franchise.

All that said, if the “second shoe” in this deal involves turning Monta into one of the three aforementioned small forwards, I can at least respect the deal as part of a vision to make us a more efficient, better rebounding, more “professional” team overall. A deal for Childress in particular — a long, smart freak of efficiency — would bespeak a real moneyball / Wins Produced philosophy (though I somehow doubt Riley has ever read Berri and Co.)

If there is no “second shoe” — if all we do is add an efficient, smallish offensive-minded power forward to our inefficient, smallish offensive-minded shooting guard, while forcing ReggieWTF to play small forward, or grabbing some garbage SF like Travis Outlaw or Josh Howard off the scrap heap — I really hate this deal.

Ugh. Much as I loathe Knicks, suddenly I’m finding myself rooting for them in LeBron sweepstakes.