NY Knicks: In Leon Rose We Trust; It’s fun to be a fan again

Leon Rose made the NY Knicks’ draft one helluva fun rollercoaster ride

The 2021 offseason took off like a rocketship after the NBA Finals ended…everything moved incredibly fast.

Knicks fans have grown accustomed to not even having ONE first-round selection, let alone TWO, so needless to say, we were all itching to see who the team would be adding.

It was pretty evident that the team wouldn’t be adding two first-round rookies from jump street, but I don’t think anyone expected what actually happened.

When Leon Rose saw he couldn’t trade up, he pivoted and traded back.

He had his targets that were likely to be drafted before the 19th pick and ones that were likely to be taken after 21.

This was the game plan all along.

As guys like Chris Duarte, Trey Murphy III, and Tre Mann all came off the board, Leon knew immediately what the next step was going to be.

The trade with Charlotte for a heavily protected 1st round pick in the future made little to no sense at the time it happened…until it made ALL the sense.

Between the trade out from 19 and the trade down from 21 to 25, the Knicks saved themselves $3 million more in cap space towards free agency.

And yet, even with trading down, they acquired two NBA-ready guards in Quentin Grimes and Miles McBride…two guys I hope to see playing huge roles for the Knicks in the future, along with a draft-and-stash promising Latvian point guard in Rokas Jokubaitis and a raw but talented big man in Jericho Sims.

I think the Knicks’ draft was incredible. I’m very high on McBride and Grimes myself and I can see Sims and Rokas being competent NBA talents as well.

I figured Deuce and Quentin could possibly take the place of some of the departing free agents as they would cost the team far less money and would help the Knicks remain more flexible for future moves.

But boy, was I wrong…