Bye Bye Bargnani: Andrea Dealt To Knicks

FINAL: Quentin Richardson will be included in the deal, likely to be immediately released, along with Camby. Deal will be official July 10th.

UPDATE: League did not approve deal tonight for unknown reasons. Knicks and Raptors still want to complete deal however will have to be restructured tomorrow under the 2013-14 player salaries. This means the deal will not go through until July 10th at the very least.

UPDATE #2: Because paperwork was not submitted to the league by the end of last week, the approval process could not be finished Sunday night, according to one NBA source. Still same deal but will need tweaks due to the new players’ salaries being included. The trade is agreed upon in principle, so relax. Stay tuned for the final details, should come soon.

Numbers will be tweaked to reflect 2013-14 salary levels — new contract terms kick in July 1 — and small pieces may have to be added to make that add up, but there is little doubt the deal will go through

The Andrea Bargnani saga is finally over. Most fans can finally breath a sigh of relief as the frustrating Italian big man will be shipped to the New York Knicks for Marcus Camby, Quentin Richardson, Steve Novak, a 2016 first round pick, and two future second round picks.

Considering Bargnani’s value was at an all-time low, this may not have been the best time to trade him, however Masai Ujiri managed to get good value out of Toronto’s most hated. In other words, they didn’t get much, however considering Bargnani was being treated as a negative, this isn’t bad.

Andrea will join his new frontcourt partner Tyson Chandler, a player that will hide his deficiencies very well. Don’t be surprised if Bargnani turns out to be a solid player in New York.

Bargnani’s 23 million dollars will come off the Raptors’ books for the next two years. In return, they will absorb Novak’s  approximate 3.75 million dollars per year for the next 3 seasons, as well as approximately 7 million dollars (total) for Camby over the next two years. The exact cap hit isn’t clear with Richardson present in deal, however will be made more clear July 10th. 

This essentially marks the end of everything associated with the Bryan Colangelo era. It also almost guarantees that Alan Anderson will not be back.

This move clears up cap space, gives the Raptors their three-point specialist, and some future draft picks. It’s unlikely that Camby or Richardson will remain with the team, however he was included to even out the salaries. This is by no means a home-run move by Ujiri, however yields a fair return on a player that was essentially run out of town.