NY Knicks: 3 reasons why the team should trade for T.J. Warren
By Max Hoover
If T.J. Warren is available this summer, the NY Knicks should call the Indiana Pacers and see what they can work out.
In Friday morning’s newsletter, Jonathan Macri hinted at the idea (subscription needed) that the Pacers might be ready to start rebuilding.
That started the mind racing. Questions abounded.
Is T.J. McConnell more easily acquired in free agency? Does Myles Turner fit with Julius Randle and RJ Barrett better than Mitchell Robinson does? Are they potentially a trade-up partner?
Should the NY Knicks target T.J. Warren via trade?
Then it dawned on me. The best piece the Knicks could acquire from the Pacers would be T.J. Warren.
Especially if the deal looks something like this:
Warren might be attainable at this price coming off a foot injury that caused him to miss the majority of last season. If this is the cost, Leon Rose should Usain Bolt over to the fax machine and send this trade into the league office.
Prior to his injury last season, Warren was averaging 15.5 points on a 52.9 effective field goal percentage according to Basketball-Reference.
It’s what he did during the 2019-2020 NBA season that should really excite the Knicks, though.
My Weigh DAE (weighted by play type, defensive-adjusted efficiency) metric ranked him as a top 20 player that season. If I factored in just what he played this past season, he would have been around that number as well.
You’d also need a terrible memory to forget what he did in the bubble.
On the ensuing slides, we’ll break down three big reasons why the Knicks should consider trading for T.J. Warren.