NY Knicks: Reacting to a proposed Justin Holiday trade idea

Ahhh…the internet never ceases to amaze me. I go online looking for NY Knicks content to aggregate from and NBA Analysis Network always delivers.

I generally catch a lot of slack for the trade proposals I make up on here, so instead, I’d much rather react to someone else’s ideas and save myself the trouble of getting cursed out in the comments.

Now, as far as the trade is concerned, the author at NBA Analysis Network came up with this idea:

Now, I’m definitely no stranger to hypothetical Kevin Knox trade articles, in fact, I’ve written several over the past year.

Perhaps I just play too much NBA 2K, but I’ve always been a huge proponent of trading off any players that have even the slightest bit of value on the open market for something I can use in the future.

Should the NY Knicks consider a trade for Justin Holiday?

I hated that the Knicks didn’t get something for Frank Ntilikina before the deadline last year and it looks like the Knicks may do the same thing with young Kevin Knox as well.

If the front office had no interest in bringing Frank back this year, why not get a middling 2nd round pick out of it?

Or a future second, who cares?

The same thing goes for Kevin Knox…he’s buried deep down on the depth chart and likely won’t see the light of day unless there are at least two major injuries for the Knicks on the wing.

He just turned 22 years old and is still on his rookie contract…I’m sure there’s some team out there who would like the ability to see what Knox may or may not have left in the tank as far as development is concerned and would be willing to wager a 2nd round to do so.

When a team trades for a player on the last year of their rookie contract, they’re not just paying for a guy to play for them for one season…they’re looking at the ability to give them ample playing time and seeing what they’re worth.

Then they can either match any incoming offers the following summer or have the ability to work out a sign-and-trade.

My point is, it’s valuable to a rebuilding team.

As far as the trade in question, I’m all for the trade itself if this were in fact NBA 2K, but this is real life and there are some issues with the deal.

I think the trade is fair, but Kevin Knox would be much better off on a team that’s projected to be a bottom 5 or 10 squad as it’ll help him find more playing time.

Indiana kinda stinks but they’re not THAT bad where Knox would easily find a role in their rotation.
He’d likely be shoved down onto their 3rd unit just like he is here in New York. I doubt he’d be

happy being traded with the same exact role on his new team.

Second, the same thing kind of applies to Justin Holiday.

A holiday reunion would be welcomed by many as he was great when he was here…I know a lot of people are still sick about the front office choosing to give Rob Baker an extension over Holiday.

Although Coach Thibs and Holiday just missed each other with the Bulls back in 2016, as Thibs’ last year there was the season prior, I know he’d immediately become one of Coach’s favorite players.

A versatile defender who can put the ball in the hole when called upon and shoots a high percentage from downtown.

What the author of the article isn’t taking into account is that the Pacers need Holiday even more than they did last year, and last year he averaged over 30 minutes a game.

After losing Victor Oladipo and Doug McDermott over the last year, they’re a lot weaker on the wing and Holiday is likely going to either be a full-time starter this season or a 6th man.

So for those reasons, it wouldn’t make any sense for the Knicks to trade for him because he would likely be on the team’s 3rd unit unless they endured an injury to either Immanuel Quickley or Alec Burks.

Nice idea, but logistically this doesn’t make a lot of sense for either side and would create a bunch of unhappy players.