The thirst is real. With no stars to speak of—unless you count the last remnants of former MVP Derrick Rose and Kemba Walker’s tattered remains—the Knicks have long coveted Donovan Mitchell, whose season ended with Thursday night’s loss to Dallas in the Western Conference first round.
Mitchell’s ties to the area are well-documented—he grew up in Westchester, introduced to sports by his father Donovan Sr., a former minor-league baseball player who continues to work in the Mets’ front office. Asked point blank about his future in Utah after being eliminated Thursday night, the All-Star deflected, insisting, “I just want to win.”
While many see Donovan’s departure from the Jazz as inevitable, if winning is truly his top priority, why would he leave a perennial contender (Utah held the top seed in the Western Conference as recently as last season) for a team that just finished six games out of the Eastern Conference’s final play-in spot? Perhaps the Utah experiment has run its course—for all their regular season success, the Jazz haven’t made it out of the second round since the days of Deron Williams and Andrei Kirilenko. But in the absence of another star (Julius Randle’s breakout 2021 is beginning to look like an outlier), Mitchell’s chances of winning a title in New York are markedly worse than if he stayed in Utah.
Even if Mitchell makes a mess of things, poisoning the locker room and making life miserable for everyone a la James Harden, Utah’s asking price in trade talks will be through the roof. Would Leon Rose mortgage the Knicks’ future (meaning draft picks and some combination of RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and Obi Toppin, if not all three) for Mitchell, an exciting but flawed player seen as a defensive liability? It helps that Mitchell is represented by Rose’s former employer, CAA (Creative Artists Agency), and, if the 25-year-old is seeking a partner in crime for his proposed New York homecoming, disgruntled Pelicans forward Zion Williamson could be looking to team up in the Big Apple.
New York has largely struck out in free agency, failing to woo the likes of Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant (Kawhi Leonard also RSVP’d “no”) while settling for mid-tier talents like the frequently invisible Evan Fournier. Faced with the prospect of another agonizing stretch of irrelevance—and possibly a new coach if Tom Thibodeau can’t get his act together soon—the Knicks very much fall into the “beggars can’t be choosers” category. Regardless of whether you believe Mitchell is the savior New York basketball needs or deserves, don’t expect the rumblings to die down anytime soon.
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