NY Knicks: The 3 Best trade offers for Evan Fournier

NY Knicks: Fournier would be a big addition

While the market is offering good assets for Fournier, they don’t address The Magic’s most glaring need, ball handlers. With Markelle Fultz and Cole Anthony both out for the season they have no point guards. They’ve been forced to start Michael Carter-Williams. The Magic have a lot of solid players: Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon, Terrence Ross, and Dwayne Bacon, whose value is decreasing because of this.

They also need veteran ball handlers to help develop their young players. They desperately need to see if Mo Bamba can live up to his draft selection (6th overall). Then looking ahead to next season, they will have a lottery pick and at least one other rookie to develop. They can’t rely on Cole Anthony to do that, who also needs to develop. As for Fultz, they don’t want to rush him back before he is fully recovered.

The NY Knicks can deal from strength as they have depth at the ball handler position, draft picks, and salary-cap space. Let’s take a look at what the Knicks’ offer would be:

The Knicks could offer Orlando two local products in Kevin Knox who is from nearby Tampa and Austin Rivers who went to high school in the Orlando area. Then there is a former Magic lottery pick, Elfrid Payton. The Knicks would also send Detroit’s 2021 2nd round pick which will be in the low 30s in a loaded draft.

In this transaction, the Magic gets the best of all the young players being offered, Kevin Knox, who is only 21 and fits the archetype of player they like. Orlando also gets two sorely needed ball handlers to help their current roster. Rivers is on a non-guaranteed contract for the next 2 seasons and Payton’s is expiring.

The Magic also save money this season and next. The Knicks will take back $14M more in salary for this season and absorb Aminu’s contract ($10.2M) for next season. Going into next season the Magic will have Kevin Knox, Cole Anthony, a lottery pick, and two more draft picks to build around while Isaac and Fultz recover from injury.

For the trade to happen Payton would need to waive his no-trade clause, which he should, as the writing is on the wall. As the NY Knicks’ schedule gets tougher, coach Thibodeau is going to rely more on Derrick Rose and Immanuel Quickley. Payton knows that if he wants to secure a decent contract for next season he needs to go to a team that will give him minutes.

As for the draft pick, both Philly’s and Denver’s 1st round picks are projected to be in the mid-20s. So getting the Detroit 2nd which will be either 31st or 32nd is not much of a drop-off in a deep draft. It is also might not be worth it for Orlando to take on $10M in salary for a 2nd round pick when the NY Knicks are offering cap relief for this season and next. This package is what I call the Brock Aller special, provides value to Orlando, and costs the Knicks very little.

This trade would give the NY Knicks a bonafide scorer that can get to the rim and shoot from outside. Fournier is averaging 18.5 ppg on a 54.3% effective field goal percentage. He is shooting 37% from 3 this season, almost 40% last season, and 37.5% for his career. He can handle the ball and play both shooting guard and small forward. He would be a huge upgrade offensively from Reggie Bullock and Alec Burks. He would also make the game easier for Randke, Barrett, and Quickley. The question is what would it cost to resign him?