Dreaming up an all-Kentucky New York Knicks lineup
Even with the New York Knicks‘ recent struggles, there have been a few bright spots on the roster in former Kentucky Wildcats Julius Randle, Immanuel Quickley, and Kevin Knox. Nerlens Noel has also shown flashes of great defensive play, which is the main reason he was brought to New York. With that said, I want to have a little fun and imagine what a starting five full of Wildcats would look like.
And to do that, let’s consider a trade between the Knicks and Rockets that looks like this:
The Rockets do this deal for very obvious reasons — they’re re-tooling their roster. Now that James Harden is a Brooklyn Net, Houston may look to revamp the way their current roster was constructed previous to the trade. Former Knicks trade and/or free agency targets Christian Wood and Victor Oladipo look to be the new cornerstone pieces for Houston, which means John Wall’s $41.2 million contract looks like more and more of an albatross than it did when he was in Washington.
Wall offers a much higher ceiling than any other point guard on the Knicks’ current roster and hasn’t looked half bad this season so far. Yes, he’s a massive injury risk, but I feel if there’s anybody who can help him return to his 2016-17 form, it’s head coach Tom Thibodeau and former Kentucky bench coach Kenny Payne.
Cousins comes to New York as a value center making just $2.3 million this year and offers a much different game than Mitchell Robinson. “Boogie” is one of the better playmaking centers in the league and can knock down mid and deep range shots at ease. I think the pair can both come close to their previous forms under Kenny Payne, as he seems to be the Wildcat whisperer.
By no means do I think Boogie would start in place of Mitch, nor would IQ start over RJ Barrett…..but let’s just play pretend here, and say, for one game, we have a little fun.
Potential starting lineup: John Wall, Immanuel Quickley, Kevin Knox, Julius Randle, Demarcus Cousins
Bench: Austin Rivers, RJ Barrett, Obi Toppin, Mitchell Robinson (Noel would be relegated to a lesser role, or if Mitch were to start in place of Boogie, Boogie would play more 4 off-the-bench, moving Obi to the reserve 3-spot)
(Editors Note: In order for this trade to work for Houston, DSJ and Bullock would most likely be cut or a 3rd team would need to be involved)