It’s been a long time since the Knicks were considered potential buyers at the trade deadline, with eyes set on upgrading for a run at the playoffs.
But that’s where New York finds itself as March approaches, sitting at 14-16 and in sixth place in the Eastern Conference as of Thursday afternoon. With Tom Thibodeau’s group enjoying surprising success up to this point, is it time for the Knicks to make a major splash when it becomes available?
John Hollinger of The Athletic thinks so, at least if it’s for a young star like Bradley Beal, who reportedly wants out of Washington, or Zach LaVine, who could be on the trading block in Chicago.
“If you’re the Knicks, Beal is young enough that if you know he’ll stay, and you get smoke signals from his people that he’ll stay on after his contract expires in a year and a half, that’s worth taking the plunge on that,” Hollinger told Moose & Maggie on Thursday. “LaVine is kind of in the same boat. He’s 25...you know now you have a LaVine/Randle or a Beal/Randle, and those guys are young enough that they can carry you for the next five or six years. [Victor] Oladipo is a different case. He’s a little older, has an injury history and is a free agent right away, so that one would scare me a little more, so I probably would back away from that.”
Beal has turned himself into a superstar, averaging a league-high 32.8 points per game this season after finishing last year with 30.5 points per game, and with the Wizards going nowhere fast, Beal could become available, though for likely a very high price. With the Knicks finally showing hope in the form of young contributors like Immanuel Quickley, and multiple first-round picks waiting, should the team give up those long-awaited assets for a proven star? Are the Knicks close enough to contention where such a deal would be worthwhile?
“Are the Knicks good enough to be like, ‘okay, we’re all in right now, we’re going to push all our chips in the way Brooklyn did for James Harden’? I think the answer to that is clearly no,” Hollinger said. “They still need to build and add some more pieces to be a realistic championship contender. If they’re in a situation where they have to give up all of their assets just to get Bradley Beal, probably not yet at a point where that’s worth it. They should definitely be making that call and see what Washington is willing to do, which right now Washington isn’t even willing to move him. But on the team side you start making those calls and greasing it so when the player is available you can get a running start.”
While the Knicks continue to figure out exactly what they have in terms of trade value, previous top-10 picks like Frank Ntilikina and Kevin Knox have seen limited playing time this season, with injuries and COVID-19 protocols affecting Ntilikina while Knox has fallen out of Thibodeau’s rotation. Hollinger sees a fairly clear picture on Ntilikina, who he believes wouldn’t generate much trade value at this point.
“I think Ntilikina’s case is a little more clear to me,” Hollinger said. “He probably tops out as a halfway-decent backup, but offensively he just never going to have enough juice to be a starting-level player. Good role player to have around because he plays hard on defense, can make an open shot and check all of those intangible boxes, but certainly not like a key piece to anything either. It’s tricky because you have Quickley there now and we’ll see if Rose is here after the season, and who knows if Elfrid Payton is in their long-term plans, so there is a way they can go with maybe Quickley and Ntilikina as the point guards. But even if he ends up sticking around, he’s a reserve guy. Can you get a second-round pick for him? Maybe. But he’s not this huge trade asset either.”
As for Knox, Hollinger sees his trade value as one that could potentially improve, but he would have to get that chance first, which will be tough at this point with Knox having played just eight minutes over the last 10 games.
“A lot of people liked him the year he came out in the draft, but his first two years were borderline disastrous,” Hollinger said. “It’s been a little better for him this year. To me, he’s a guy you might want to run this out a little longer maybe just to see where he can get to. Certainly it’s a Kentucky-friendly environment in NY…some people on the staff may know him better. I think you might want to let that play out a little more. His trade value isn’t huge right now, but there were enough believers in his draft year that if you put together a good few weeks, you might be baiting the hook a little bit.”
For Hollinger, the fact that the Knicks are even in a spot to evaluate potential trade assets and consider a big-time move to push for a playoff spot should be a cause for celebration in New York, even if Beal and LaVine wind up staying put or are traded elsewhere.
“They’re further along than we thought they’d be at the beginning of the year,” Hollinger said. “For them to be in the playoff chase is certainly a pleasant surprise. Julius Randle is having a really big year, and he’s young enough that he can still be part of whatever the Knicks build going forward. It’s not just like New York’s history where they bring in a random 32-year-old and he’ll score 30 points a game but it doesn’t matter to anything going forward because that guy just ages out. Randle doing this is big news.”
Listen to Hollinger’s full interview with Moose & Maggie below!
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