It’s one thing to get someone to take your hot garbage. It’s another to convince them to pay you for it.

On Sunday, the Toronto Raptors got the New York Knicks to take that human cluster-headache, Andrea Bargnani, off their hands. In return, the Raptors receive old-timey shootist Steve Novak and creaky centre Marcus Camby.

The deal won’t be final for two weeks. Talking about it as if it is tempting fate. Since good karmic practice has never done the Raptors any good, we’re not going to bother with it. In our hearts, this is over.

Bargnani for Novak and Camby was good enough.

From a cap perspective, it’s a win. Bargnani will cost about $22 million (U.S.) over the next two seasons. Novak and Camby combined have about $19.5 million remaining on their deals.

You could also argue it’s an upgrade from an on-court perspective. At this point in his career, Bargnani is a brittle, emotional leech who refuses to even pretend to play defence. For reasons known only to himself, he’s given up.

When you’re around him, you don’t even get the feeling he’s in it for the money. It appears that he does this because he hasn’t found a hobby.

Novak does only one thing — shoot the three — but it’s a thing the Raptors aren’t any good at. In a league increasingly focused on the higher relative value of three-pointers, the Raptors ranked 25th in three-point shooting percentage last season.

The 39-year-old Camby, originally drafted by Toronto in 1996, is in steady physical decline, but can still provide a few tough-minded minutes or be cut loose.

From the Toronto perspective, the trade looked pretty solid. Then New York tossed in a protected, first-round pick in the 2016 draft and two second-round picks.

Suddenly, this isn’t two teams agreeing to share a ride to the dump. This is one team beating another team up on a trade. It’s a fleece.

What was new GM Masai Ujiri wearing when he negotiated this deal? A ski mask?

Getting picks in return for a cap-sagging player everyone in the NBA knew you were aching to be rid of is theft.

The only way to explain this is that after seeing the Brooklyn Nets pay gazillions for the ghosts of Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, the Knicks thought, “We’ll show you what stupid looks like.”

There are two sorts of great trades: ones that make the team suddenly better; and ones that prevent the team from getting steadily worse. This is the latter for now. In a few years, it could be the former as well.

Though an enormous wellspring of dislike had built up around the mopey Italian amongst the fan base, it never seeped into the team. No one at the Raptors hated Bargnani. Teammates swore he had a great sense of humour, though if so he did a good job hiding it. Behind the scenes, he was described as relaxed. Then he’d wander out on the court and get so relaxed he was practically lying down.

What came through when people around the team talked about him off the record was frustration.

“I’m not sure he likes playing basketball,” was how one insider put it, shaking his head at the thought.

Another said: “He’s the least Italian Italian I’ve ever met.”

Emotionless. Rarely present. Unmoved by appeals to professional pride, or even vanity. Bargnani should have been a star in this league. Maybe he still will be.

He has the physical toolbox. His problem is that he never bothers to bring the tools to work.

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This could be the kick in the ass he needs. Certainly, that’s how they’ll think of it in New York. Take him out of the Forbidden Zone up north, row him across the Hudson and once he gets a load of the spotlights hitting the Garden, he’ll open up like an Evening Primrose.

Good luck with that.

A lot of people who make a lot of money doing this sort of thing have been trying to motivate Bargnani for years, and failed miserably at it. He is a stump. He cannot be moved.

He’s cost two coaches and one general manager their jobs, and there will be more victims before this professional killing spree ends.

We can guess why New York likes him. He’s played well against the Knicks (in 2010, he scored 41 against them, the best night of his career). On paper, he’s the stretch-4 who makes it harder to gang up on Carmelo Anthony.

But however tantalizing, the potential was always unrealized here. Bargnani had become bad mojo, what sailors call a Jonah. His presence was poisonous to the enterprise he was part of. After seven enormously frustrating years, he stank of failure. Now he gets to wash off. He’s still only 27. We hope he manages it.

But Toronto needed rid of him. Aside from tactical concerns, this represents a fresh start.

Novak and Camby won’t make the Raptors much better, but Bargnani was guaranteed to make them worse.

All that was required was shedding his deal. Instead, they’ve swapped out defeat and replaced it with hope. Over the coming years, those picks could prove decisive as the Raptors’ window begins to open after the 2014/15 season.

They called Bargnani “Il Mago” — the Magician. Finally (find wood; knock repeatedly) he’s about to vanish. Once the deal is done, it’s Masai Ujiri who’ll have the crowd squealing at his trick.

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