The NY Knicks most likely drafted Obi Toppin with the idea in mind of him eventually being their starting Power Forward and potentially dealing Julius Randle by this year’s trade deadline.
Now, clearly, that’s not happening.
I spent enough time being the “good guy” and trying to continue the Knicks’ rebuild by possibly trading for some rookies or waiting to bring in some players who might be bought out.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
I’ve done a couple of these “3 levels of trades’ articles and people have really liked them so far.
Exploring the different possibilities of what the Knicks can get back for just the player mentioned by themselves, or what could come of a trade with a bunch of moving parts is exciting.
I’ll acknowledge that I don’t believe the Knicks are going to make any huge splashes this year and may opt to wait for the summer to pull off a blockbuster or make a huge signing or two.
But, it can’t hurt to play around with the possibilities.
Should the NY Knicks explore a trade involving Obi Toppin?
Obi Toppin has shown flashes of what he can one day become but overall, he’s struggling and being completely overshadowed by a player drafted 17 spots later than he was in Immanuel Quickley.
On draft night, many believed that Toppin wouldn’t make it down to pick number 8, so watching Leon Rose raise his fists in the air with excitement in his first-ever draft with the Knicks made sense.
Since then, between Obi struggling as most rookies do and not getting nearly enough playing time behind King Julius, it seems maybe the rookie could be expendable for a ‘win now’ Knicks team.
Here we explore 3 levels of trade for Obi Toppin: