All-Star Knicks power forward Julius Randle has struggled to stay healthy during New York’s last two playoff appearances, and questions have long lingered about his fit on Tom Thibodeau‘s team.
With All-NBA point guard Jalen Brunson now clearly the Knicks’ top offensive option and the team missing center depth, Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report pitches an intriguing hypothetical three-team deal involving Randle.
Pincus proposes that the Knicks send Randle and reserve center Jericho Sims to the Hornets and a pair of heavily protected 2025 first-round picks to the Wizards. In Pincus’ suggested deal, the Knicks would acquire floor-spacing combo forward Grant Williams and bouncy center Nick Richards while generating a pair of trade exceptions. Charlotte would also acquire Corey Kispert and Marvin Bagley while Washington would add Josh Green and Cody Martin in Pincus’ hypothetical.
There’s more out of New York:
- The Knicks could still be on the hunt for a reserve center, Ian Begley of SNY.tv writes in a new mailbag. New York previously explored signing Omer Yurtseven and Bruno Fernando, both of whom ended up elsewhere.
- Heading into the 2024/25 season, the Knicks have one final standard roster spot available. Sources tell Begley that it appears unlikely New York will bring back reserve point guard Ryan Arcidiacono for that spot. The Knicks may instead look to see if anyone stands out in training camp enough to warrant becoming the club’s 15th man.
- The Nets‘ G League affiliate, the Long Island Nets, have traded their 2025 first- and second-round draft picks to the Iowa Wolves, the Timberwolves‘ NBAGL squad, in exchange for the returning player rights to forward Tyrese Martin. Across 33 contests (28 starts), the 6’6″ wing averaged 17.8 points, 8.0 boards, 3.5 assists and 1.0 steals.
- Long Island has been active this week. The Nets‘ NBAGL team also shipped out the returning player rights to forward Kaiser Gates to the Hawks‘ G League team, the College Park Skyhawks, to obtain the returning rights for guard Tyson Etienne. In 51 regular season games with the Skyhawks from 2022-24, Etienne averaged 7.6 points on .444/.356/.722 shooting splits, plus 3.5 assists, 2.6 rebounds and 0.7 steals per night.
Why do the Knicks need to include picks with Randle? Is the goal to dump salary?
For Knicks
My favorite topic is how to find a way to acquire Anthony Davis?
Hypothetical Blockbuster Five-Team Trade?
Yes!!
Davis is just another injury-prone big man.
The trades nearly impossible but all the Knicks would need him for is the last 16 wins.
That hypothetical trade is comically awful. Randle is an all star. Trading him for role players would make the Knicks much worse, and considerably lower their ceiling. The trade exceptions would be worthless, because they’d have limited assets to package after that. Such an awful proposal doesn’t deserve any additional media coverage.
That’s the dumbest trade proposal I’ve ever seen.
Indeed. HR, you’re better than this
Pincus must have forgot that they just traded 4 1st round picks a couple of months ago. The picks would be in the mid 2030’s
No, those are protected Pistons and Wizards picks that are probably going to be 2nds. I guess there is some value in the Wizards for getting their “own” pick back to simplify Stepien bookkeeping. I think Charlotte would prefer to take Green and Bagley out of the deal.
Once injured your value will dip significantly then they trade you. That’s just NBA.
Dymytro is worthy of the 15th spot. He is the best center on that team and is legit NBA starter.
Stop trying be so damn sexy Knicks.
Intriguing? For who? More like comical. Trade a 3 time All Star in his prime on a team friendly contract, along with 2 FRPs and a servicable backup C, for a toxic contract (CHA was paid a very lightly protected FRP to take Williams at the last deadline) and a servicable backup C. Even if the NYK for some reason were anxious to “move on” from Randle, I’m guessing they would just let him become a FA at the end of the year.
Pincus needs to be drug tested.
The proposed trade is obviously more about fit …. Randle’s injury provided a decent sample size of how they play with Brunson leading the way -it went well.
Grant can hit the long ball, Richards takes the role that IH vacated. Both plays D, which Thibs always likes.
If anything, the proposed trade pushes back the Hornets some. They need their kids to develop within the same timeline.
A high scoring, albeit ball hogging Randle will slow them down, literally and figuratively.
Regarding fit, they were doing quite well on their 14-2 run once they acquired OG and had Randle on the court along with Brunson and gang. We never got to see how far that would go after that Miami game when Randle went on the IR.
Let’s trade our All-NBA power forward for a backup center and the next Evan Fournier.
Poor Ryan A I guess the third time won’t be the charm. He’s the missing piece Nova infinity stones.