Pass or Pursue on 3 Knicks trades anchored toward competing
Trade #3: Sending A LOT of assets for a star in a down year
This is easily my least favorite trade yet. While for the others, the reason for passing had more to do with fit than anything else, this trade is just not good. In this trade, the Knicks would be shipping off RJ Barrett, Quickley, Fournier, four first-round picks, and a pick swap for Karl-Anthony Towns.
As much as I love Towns and think he would be a more than perfect fit for the Knicks, his level of performance this season is less than worthy of all these assets. Through 21 games, Towns is averaging 20.8 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 5.3 assists while shooting 50.5% from the field and 32.5% from three on 5.6 attempts.
Normally, this is a trade the Knicks would maybe consider pulling off. While it doesn’t help that Towns is playing out of position and in a rather poor situation, his level of play is certainly concerning and not warranting of this package.
In addition to this, while this is overblown a lot of the time, Towns is still not the best defender, and considering how much the team has struggled on that side of the ball at times this season, bringing in Towns wouldn’t help.
Towns and the Knicks have been intertwined in trade rumors for a very long time now and as nice as it would be to have him on the team, I have a hard time looking past how poor he has played this season.
This is going to be the first game of pass or pursue in which all trades were passed upon. While all of these players would more than likely make the Knicks better, their fit and the assets the Knicks are giving up make it too difficult to say yes.
Verdict: Pass
