The 3 most likely NY Knicks players to be traded this season
The NY Knicks have a record of 5-5 over their last 10 games and almost ended 2021 on a 4-game winning streak.
In the final 4 games of last year, their record was 3-1.
If you told me two months ago that this would be the case, I wouldn’t bat an eye…I wouldn’t overthink anything and I’d believe it was entirely normal.
And yet, somehow, the entire fanbase is up in arms, and the collective mood of the season is currently in shambles.
I would love to say that the Knicks can turn things around, and they can, but as fans, we’ve been here before.
Many times.
Who should the NY Knicks trade this season?
Right now, the Knicks just plain old stink, outright.
Although the team is better on paper in nearly every aspect that hindered them in the 2020-21 season, for whatever reason they just haven’t found a way to mesh.
The team’s identity was in their defense last season, which ranked 3rd in the entire NBA.
The front office set out to improve the offense in the summer, which they did…marginally.
But in turn, they’ve completely tanked on the defensive side of the ball where they currently rank 18th in the league.
When your team is coached by Tom Thibodeau, a man who couldn’t care less about offense, if your team underperforms on the defensive side, things are bound to fall apart and Thibs is going to look like a far worse coach than he actually is.
Taking a look back at Thibs’ days with Chicago, he ran the defense and let Derrick Rose kinda just do his thing on offense.
Compare that to the Knicks last season…Julius Randle just did his thing and the rest of the team played off of him while Thibs ran the defense.
The difference being that Derrick Rose was a generational type of talent that could have led an NBA title contender had he stayed healthy whereas Randle is best suited as a #2 or even #3 on a contending team in 2022.
All of these things have led me to the reasons for this article.
The Knicks are essentially in the worst position a franchise could be in.
Good enough to not be one of the worst teams in the league but also several major trades and acquisitions away from being a serious player in the East.
Some would say they should have stuck to their original plan at the beginning of last season and focused on rebuilding, basically considering last season to be a fluke.
Others believe they should go all-in and do their best to pair Julius Randle with another Star player to propel the Knicks closer to the top of the Eastern Conference.
Here I’ll go into detail as to who I believe the Knicks are most likely to trade this season and the reasoning as to why and what direction that will take the team in.