NY Knicks: Grading every Steve Mills transaction, Part 1

The Carmelo Trade

GRADE: A

This one deserves a post on its own, but I will try to sum it up succinctly. After Carmelo’s relationship with the Knicks soured due to Phil Jackson, Steve Mills and new general manager Scott Perry were left in a difficult situation of trying to trade a player who held all of the cards with a no-trade clause in his contract.

Negotiating with one of the league’s best executives, Sam Presti, the Knicks somehow came away with an impressive return, considering one of the second round picks acquired in the deal turned out to be Mitchell Robinson.

Now, you could say finding Mitchell Robinson in the second round is a result of scouting and luck more than the expected return from this trade, but that is what happens when you acquire additional draft picks instead of trade them away, as the Knicks have done time and again in the past.

New York also acquired sharp-shooter Doug McDermott, who played well for the Knicks before being traded in a package that netted Emmanuel Mudiay. And whatever your opinion is of Enes Kanter, he was added to the deal to make the salaries work, and he turned into an affable character for the Knicks, rebounding at a high volume.

The Carmelo trade is the best moment in the Steve Mills presidency. While Mills was part of the regime that ultimately soured Carmelo’s time in New York, the main culprit of that appears to be his former boss, Phil Jackson. And for this article, we are focused on the moves made by Mills as team president.

James Dolan had forced the hand of a previous GM to forfeit extra assets to acquire Melo; and Mills and Perry were able to somehow gain some of those assets back in trading him away.