In case you haven’t seen it yet, Stephen A. Smith is willing to trade practically the ENTIRE NY Knicks roster for Damian Lillard…
Stephen A. Smith today on First Take said “he would give them anything” while naming Randle, Barrett, Toppin, Quickley, Robinson… AND 3 FIRST-ROUND PICKS.
Hot take? Scorching to say the least.
Of course, whenever a star player is being rumored to be traded, the Knicks are always in the conversation and while it’s fun to think about it, we still need to be realistic.
Do we really want to gut our entire roster for one player? Or do we stay on track adding piece by piece slowly but surely?
Decisions will have to be heavily considered by the Knicks front office in the coming days and weeks as we approach the NBA Draft and free agency.
Stephen A. said he would trade WHO from the NY Knicks for Damian Lillard?
While Lillard is an elite NBA player, trading all of that for him is just not it. The Knicks might as well be playing 5 on 1 if they listened to Stephen A. Smith.
Of course, the ESPN personality is known to be dramatic at times and might have been here, but regardless I personally do not think we should be trading for Lillard.
When it comes to price tags, Lillard may have one of the highest in the NBA right now, and deservingly so.
The six-time All-Star averaged 28.8 points and 7.5 assists last year and is always putting on a show.
Lillard being in a bigger market and playing at the world’s most famous arena sounds like a match made in heaven, but where the Knicks are in terms of rebuilding, they are not ready to get rid of everything.
Instead, in my opinion, the Knicks should be looking at other options either in trades or free agency.
Names like Collin Sexton, Kyle Lowry, and Lonzo Ball are much much better fits and for a lot less of a cost.
The cap space the Knicks have gives them a lot of flexibility this summer if they were to target Damian Lillard, but I just cannot see it happening (I’m sorry to be a bubble burster).
But given the new Knicks competence they’ve been showing, I trust in whatever they do, so let’s buckle up and see what happens.