Bargnani Exit Is Still Happening.

The Raptors don’t do anything easily as if you followed the drama that became the Andrea Bargnani trade to the New York Knicks. It might have a lot of people confused, some worried and some just not caring or knowing with the holiday weekend.

Happy Canada Day by the way.

So let me try to explain this as best as I understand it. The original deal that was first reported:

To Toronto:
Steve Novak
Marcus Camby
First round pick in 2016
Two future second round picks.

To Knicks:
Andrea Bargnani

That was what was on the table before midnight last night. The trade was submitted to the NBA League office and was rejected. Why?

Here is why. Bargnani is traded had a 5% bump to his contract if he was traded. This is commonly referred to as trade kicker. In addition Camby and Novack both have their salaries go down in 2013/14. These changes made the contracts not line-up to make a successful trade.

The problem than became who the Knicks could add to make the trade work. They did not have a salary with a player under contract to complete the trade prior to midnight last night to complete the trade. So the Knicks had to find a player willing to sign and move on to Toronto. In the end that guy has become Quinton Richardson. So now you just add his name to the existing trade listed about.

Marcus Camby as you might remember had some issues with former Raptors coach Butch Carter. It likely left a negative taste in the mouth of Camby so do not be expecting him to be returning to the Raptors. He most likely will be bought out. His official reason for not wanting to come to Toronto is he wants to try and win a title before he retires and he is 40 so time is short. In the end Camby was in this trade just to make money work. It would have been nice if he could have come aboard and mentored a guy like Jonas Valanciunas. Much like in the Vince Carter trade having Zoe come on board would have been nice but was not a factor in making the trade overall.

They key to this trade is Novak that does what Bargnani is suppose to do in terms of three point shooting and 3 future assets in form of picks in the one first rounder in 2016 and a couple seconds on the way. So why has this trade not been completed?

The same reason we have to wait for July 10th to make all deals official. The league as of midnight last night is in a roster freeze from now until that time to establish the new cap numbers for the upcoming NBA year.

So hopefully that makes sense of things for you. Technically a side could back out of any deal during this time but these situations are extremely rare. In addition the fact both sides got the corrections to this deal done immediately you can feel safe in the Knicks wanted to get this deal done. Raptors fans are very gun shy with just cause but this deal is going to happening barring something completely bizarre.