Well, the Knicks got this far into the season without any major injuries……couldn’t expect that to go on forever. They’re the Knicks, of course, they have to deal with some kind of adversity because why not? Mitchell Robinson was forced to exit early on Friday against the Wizards after just 19 minutes of play with what seemed to be a pretty bad hand injury. Later we found out that the injury was indeed a hand fracture that will require surgery and approximately 4-6 weeks of recovery time. While the loss will certainly hurt the Knicks and their top-10 defense, it’s not really the end of the world.
Nerlens Noel has filled in admirably in Robinson’s absence so far and has also had quite the season in his own right even when Robinson was healthy. Noel has averaged 2 blocks and 5.2 rebounds per game in just 18.2 minutes per game so far this year. You really can’t ask for much more out of a backup center.
While Noel was purposely acquired to substitute in for Mitchell Robinson when he’d head to the bench as a bouncy, defensive-minded big-man, the Knicks could potentially look to see what other centers might be available for trade.
Should the Knicks explore trade options to fill the hole at center?
The 5-spot in the NBA has become what the running back is to the NFL, in that teams could get pretty far along without having one of the premier players at the position and can plug-and-play a 2 or 3-man rotation of centers and still find success. Slowly but surely, traditional centers are being phased out of the game and are only being used as big bodies to help clean up the glass and prevent easy baskets at the rim. Similar to the NFL, a lot of teams are opting to not pay big-men and instead use a 3-headed monster that when combined can do a little bit of everything you’d expect from the star centers of years past, and so the market for centers has dwindled. When teams can get players like Nerlens Noel and Marc Gasol on the cheap, why pay $20+ million to a guy that doesn’t do much more for the team on the court.
That being said, I think the Knicks would be wise to scour the trade market for a center to fill in for Mitch’s temporary absence. Maybe the Knicks can steal a gem away from another team as they climb the Eastern Conference rankings.