Donnie Walsh is set to pull the trigger on his first substantive move as Knicks president, The New York Post has learned.
Knicks sources said a deal for Al Harrington was to go through late yesterday, but was delayed until today. A league conference call is scheduled for this morning that would bring the disgruntled Warriors forward to the Knicks, presumably for Malik Rose.
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A product of St. Patrick’s in Elizabeth, N.J., Harrington has played in just five games this season. He was grounded by coach Don Nelson soon after stating publicly he wanted to be traded.
They failed to hit it off almost immediately after the Pacers sent him to Golden State along with Stephen Jackson in a multi-player trade (Mike Dunleavy and Troy Murphy went to Indiana) on Jan. 16, 2007. Once their conflict became news (Harrington felt Nelson cramped his style) Al got sent to a time out chair – shortly after he complained of back problems and underwent a MRI.
At that point Walsh intensified his effort to acquire the devalued forward, who asked to be traded in June. The Knicks reached out to executive VP of basketball operations Chris Mullin on several occasions, but were rebuffed for lack of equal compensation. The open conflict made it much easier to make a deal.
The move will reunite Walsh with Harrington, whom the Pacers president drafted out of high school (No. 25) in 1998.
In 10 seasons, he has averaged 13.0 points and 5.6 rebounds per game, including a career-best 18.6 ppg for Atlanta in 2005-06. Harrington was traded to the Hawks in ’04 for Jackson. Walsh reclaimed Harrington in the summer of ’06 for a first round pick.
Harrington has two years left on his deal–currently $9.3 million with $10M guaranteed on tap in 2009-10. Rose, attractive to the Warriors because of his expiring contract, is set to make $7.64 million this year. The deal can be made one-for-one because their salaries are within 25 percent (plus 100G) of each other.
Until now, the only other trades Walsh made were moving Renaldo Balkman to Denver for two fringe players who the Knicks promptly cut, and acquiring Patrick Ewing Jr. from Houston for the draft rights to Frederic Weis.