NY Knicks: 3 Kemba Walker trades team should consider

If you’ve been following Daily Knicks ever since Adam Kester and I took over, you’d know that a Kemba Walker trade article was inevitable after the news broke yesterday.

For those of you who perhaps live under a rock and haven’t yet heard said news, Kemba Walker has been removed from NY’s rotation “for the time being” with Alec Burks as the team’s starting PG.

A sad but not at all surprising move by Coach Thibs and Co.

The above stats hurt my eyes to look at.

The fact is that in order to justify having a player of Kemba’s defensive caliber on the floor for extended periods of time, he must be able to put out the high-level scoring he’s best known for.

Should the NY Knicks move on from Kemba Walker?

Otherwise, all he is is a walking, talking, 34th Street train station turnstile by way of the Bronx.

In fact, Kemba has by far and away the worse plus-minus stat of the entire team so far this season, leading the Knicks with a -122.

The second worst player on the team has been Mitchell Robinson with just a -68 on the year…a far more respectable number through essentially the same amount of games played.

I think I speak for everyone when I say I was excited to see what Kemba would bring to the Knicks who’ve so sorely needed an above-average point guard for what seems like my entire life.

And I also wanted to see the synergy that Walker and Evan Fournier seemed to have created in Boston replicated while both wearing some sweet orange and blue uni’s.

But to be frank, the timing of this benching is uncanny, considering that December 15th is the first date that teams can trade newly acquired contracts from this past offseason.

The Knicks are about to experience one of the toughest stretches of their season so far, with matchups against Brooklyn, Chicago, Denver, San Antonio, Toronto, Milwaukee, and Golden State on the docket.

This 7 game sample size should more than prove to Thibs and Leon Rose if Kemba was the real problem and if a trade will have to be made.

I say ‘real problem’ but what I truly mean is that maybe the Kemba experiment was doomed from jump street and the fit within Thibs’ system was never a match.

Let us recall how free agency went, where the Knicks were in on guys like Spencer Dinwiddie, Lonzo Ball, and even Kendrick Nunn before they even considered Kemba as an option.

Perhaps Thibs wasn’t all that excited about bringing on the shell of what Kemba Walker once was, to begin with, and instead accepted the idea with having a short leash for him in mind.

Thibs moved on from Kemba in just 20 games whereas he refused to move on from Elfrid Payton all of last season, so we as fans should definitely commend him for doing what was best for the team as quickly as he did.

That said, let’s take a look at some trades the Knicks could consider if they do in fact decide to move on from Kemba in the near future.

Would you consider this Damian Lillard trade for the NY Knicks?

Listen, if I did what I’d normally do on my ‘click to next page’ button at the bottom of the previous slide, it would have given away who I’m targeting here entirely.

I’ve hypothetically traded for Damian Lillard about 687,000 times so far and I’m just gonna do it here again.

The Knicks have kinda stunk so far this season, but maybe that’s because we all had much higher expectations after last year as well as how the first 6 games of the season went.

Not a lot of teams out there who have been more dysfunctional than the Knicks have been, but one of those teams is most certainly the Portland Trailblazers.

The Knicks seem to be making an attempt to fix what has ailed them through the first 20 games of the season, but there’s not nearly as much hope for Portland.

There have been too many rumors around the idea that Dame wants out ASAP, and although he gave the organization one last chance, it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to keep him around much longer.

I know I’m going to catch a ton of heat in the comments, as I always do for my trades but frankly, I don’t care what any of the naysayers have to say anymore.

The above trade is what deals for superstars look like as evidenced by essentially every single trade for that caliber of player in the last 5-6 seasons.

Go look at what was given up in the Harden deal, the Anthony Davis deal, the Paul George deal, and so on.

Half the people who comment on my trade concepts think Kevin Knox and a couple of 2nd round picks get it done in a trade for LeBron.

My major concern on the Knicks’ end of this deal is that they’d be very, VERY young once the dust settles.

For a team with playoff aspirations and then some, although guys like IQ and Obi have been out-playing some of the vets this season, it might hinder them come the postseason to lose that much veteran talent.

But from a financial perspective, the numbers add up almost exactly.

In fact, the Knicks would clear up about $1 million off their cap with this deal.

And I know what a lot of you are going to say…yes, the Knicks would have just one 1st round pick over the next 3 drafts, but I don’t see that being an issue, to be honest.

People tend to only focus on what the team is giving up in trades and not what they’re left with after the fact.

Having first-round picks is nice but adding Damian Lillard to a team that still has RJ Barrett, Alec Burks, Julius Randle, Mitchell Robinson, Derrick Rose, Immanuel Quickley, and Obi Toppin is better.

Let’s also consider that the Knicks would still have Deuce McBride, Quentin Grimes, Jericho Sims, and Taj to round out the roster after this deal.

The Knicks’ 2023 1st rounder would likely not convey to Portland, so they’d still have that available alongside a slew of 2nd round selections between 2022 and 2024.

Even without the trade, the Knicks’ picks are going to be in the 20-30 range regardless, so if they were enamored by a player in that range in any of the next 3 seasons, they have the ammunition to get back into the 20’s if need be.

Lastly, even if the Knicks get themselves stuck with a bunch of second-rounders, have we not seen what they can do with those late picks?

I rest my case.

Would you consider this De’Aaron Fox trade for the NY Knicks?

The Kings are a mess and they have far too much talent to be as bad as they have been for this many years consecutively.

There are issues within the organization that transcend far beyond the roster’s composition and studs like De’Aaron Fox need to get the heck outta there before he wastes too much of his career trying to make a junk box team good.

The front office has finally cut ties with Luke Walton, but as we all know, with one major change…others are sure to follow.

I’ve written tons of articles about the Knicks targeting different players with Sacramento over the past year and for good reason.

That team needs to go with a youth movement and blow it all up ASAP.

Kings’ GM Monte McNair has tried his best to clean up the messes that were created before he was hired, button no avail.

Trading off all the aging talent and starting over fresh is only fair.

We know the Knicks like their former Kentucky guys, evidenced by the plethora of former Wildcats executives Leon Rose and World Wide Wes have brought onto the team since they took the helm.

Adding De’Aaron Fox to that list would be a tremendous addition.

Unlike Dame, I think the Knicks could acquire Fox and not necessarily have to make any other ‘win now’ moves.

Fox is locked up for the next 5 years and if he’s willing to remain patient with the Kings, he’d surely be willing to buy into what the Knicks’ long-term plans are and hang around until they acquire another star…perhaps via free agency in a few seasons.

Guys like Karl-Anthony Towns and Devin Booker both become free agents in 2024, which seems to be the free agency class the Knicks are playing for currently seeing how their most recent acquisition’s contracts have been structured.

The Knicks would provide ‘Swipa’ a playoff-caliber team year in and year out while they wait and see who else would like to come aboard New York’s rocketship.

Would you consider this Myles Turner trade for the NY Knicks?

I hate to keep beating a dead horse with these hypothetical Myles Turner trades, as Daily Knicks has covered this topic extensively over the last few months.

Additionally, there were rumors in the offseason that the Knicks were checking in with Indiana about Turner’s availability, and obviously, New York wasn’t willing to pay the price they were asking back then.

But hear me out.

Indiana stinks, yet again. The roster just doesn’t work and ever since Victor Oladipo left, they’ve seemingly been getting worse and worse.

A few years ago, they were a bright, young, budding team in the East but now they’re a shell of their former selves.

I think it’s finally time to cut the cord on some of these guys and start over anew.

If you told me 3 years ago that a team trading Kemba Walker would have to add in additional pieces in order to grab Myles Turner, I’d have thought you had serious mental issues and were in need of therapy.

But alas, it’s what would be the case.

Maybe it’s my Knicks bias but if the team were to deal Mitch and Kemba (and throw in Knox to match salaries) for Turner, I’d still want at least a future, unprotected first in the deal…otherwise I would think the Knicks were getting hosed.

I’ve gone into full detail too many times to count in previous articles on why I think Myles Turner would be a tremendous fit on the Knicks, so I’m not going to do that again here.

But what I will reiterate for the 173rd time is that Mitchell Robinson is a free agent by the end of this year, and an unrestricted one at that.

If the Knicks and Robinson’s representation can’t come to an agreement on a number, it would behoove the team to move on from him and get something rather than lose him for nothing.

Is Myles Turner a better player than Mitch is today? Yes.

Do I think Mitch can eventually become a better player than Turner is today? Also yes.

I’m only doing this deal if Mitch doesn’t want to re-sign with the Knicks and for no other reasons.