Jose Alvarado trade grades: Knicks add great backup guard in deadline swap

Madison Square Garden loves two things above all else: try-hard role players and native New Yorkers. The Knicks just got both in one player in a deadline deal with the New Orleans Pelicans, turning the recently acquired Dalen Terry and two second-round picks into backup guard Jose Alvarado, according to ESPN.

Alvarado, born in Brooklyn and a high school star in Queens, has spent his entire NBA career to this point with the Pelicans mostly playing for uncompetitive teams. Now he'll join a Knicks team with championship ambitions, and his role player skill set should fit in quite nicely with what New York has already built. So let's grade the trade for both sides.

New York Knicks: A

The Knicks had minimal matching salary to work with at this year's deadline. Essentially, it was Guerschon Yabusele and a couple of minimums. There wasn't a path to them adding someone expensive without giving up a core player, which they seemingly had no interest in doing. Therefore, the goal was getting an affordable reserve who'd fit their culture and be able to contribute 10 or 15 solid minutes per night.

That's Alvarado in a nutshell. Think Josh Hart, but six inches shorter. Few guards in the NBA play as hard as Alvarado does. The "Grand Theft Alvarado" backcourt steals get all of the attention, but his effort manifests in all sorts of ways. He averages 3.5 deflections per 36 minutes... with a 6-foot-1 wingspan. He dives for loose balls, fights through screens and makes life miserable for opposing ball-handlers. There are inherent limitations for a player this small (he's listed at six feet) but Alvarado makes the most of what he has. He is by no means a great offensive player, but he's at least a solid enough wide-open shooter. He has to be guarded.

In a perfect world, the Knicks might have preferred to use this salary slot on a big. That's why they signed Yabusele in the first place, after all, and Tyler Kolek has grown enough to have plausibly played a real role in the postseason. But on Thursday, we learned that key reserve Deuce McBride is having core muscle surgery and may be out until the playoffs, according to The Athletic. That created more of a need to get a guard now, and the Knicks pounced. Getting a player who fills a need and can play in the postseason for two second-round picks is a real win.

The cherry on top here is Alvarado's potentially favorable contract status. He has a $4.5 million player option for next season. Now, he's obviously worth more than that and would typically be expected to opt out of it. However, he becomes eligible for a four-year, $68 million contract extension in the offseason. There might be scenarios this summer in which the Knicks, say, want to trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Such a move would hard-cap them at the second apron. Being able to potentially keep Alvarado at a low cap figure next season while paying him long-term afterward is a helpful little bonus here. Even if the Knicks aren't subject to a hard cap, they're likely to go beyond the second apron to re-sign Mitchell Robinson. A low Alvarado cap figure next season could at least lower a hefty tax bill for the Knicks. They can afford it, but hey, it's always easier not to ask the owner to spend unnecessarily.

New Orleans Pelicans: D

It was never quite clear why the Pelicans didn't view Alvarado as a long-term part of their team. He's been in New Orleans for five years. In all five seasons, the Pelicans have had a higher net rating with him on the court than off of it. On multiple occasions, that gap was at least 10 points per 100 possessions. The Pelicans don't control their first-round pick this year. They're not tanking. If they planned to do so next year, they likely would have traded bigger-name veterans by now. They're trying to win. They're always better with Alvarado on the floor. Yet at every turn, they've marginalized him. He wasn't even in the opening night rotation for reasons that remain unclear.

Is this financial? The Pelicans are hilariously close to the luxury tax for a team this bad. As of this writing, New Orleans is around $3.6 million below next year's projected tax line with 14 players on the roster. Had Alvarado picked up his option, that would have taken them over the line, and if he hadn't, they would've lost him for nothing. The Pelicans are known as... let's say one of the NBA's thriftier teams. Maybe they simply determined keeping him was too expensive, so they got a couple of second-round picks and called it a day.

But it seems like it would have made far more sense not to take on an extra year of Jordan Poole's contract at $34 million and just kept Alvarado that way. Saddiq Bey has played quite well after coming over in that deal... except his contract expires after next season, so by the time the Pelicans are ready to actually start winning, he'll be expensive. The Joe Dumars-Troy Weaver administration has shown a real ability to evaluate talent, but absolutely no acumen for resource management or actual team-building. The Derik Queen trade is the most stark example of that, but not finding a way to keep the 27-year-old Alvarado as a long-term reserve is another. New Orleans doesn't have such a surplus of good players that it can afford to give away young and reasonably affordable ones for second-round picks. Alvarado was a homegrown success story who now departs for his hometown.