The New York Knicks are looking to build off of their deepest playoff run in 25 years. They have championship expectations and enough talent on their roster to meet them. Naturally, the national discourse about the team on Tuesday has been mostly about the latest reports that Giannis Antetokounmpo has long been prepared to part ways with the Milwaukee Bucks.
It's inherently tempting to imagine the 2021 Finals MVP on the Knicks' roster. But New York didn't necessarily respond incredibly well to the looming possibility of a shake-up involving the Greek Freak ahead of this year's trade deadline.
The Knicks, especially given the tumultuous nature of their regular season thus far, simply cannot afford to get wrapped up in another round of the Antetokounmpo rumor mill. The expectation is already for this group to win their first three series of the postseason, and this is noise that needs to be blocked out for the forseeable future.
Giannis seems to finally be on the move...
Some may argue that the reminder of that pressure, right before the NBA Playoffs, is exactly what the Knicks need. But internally, this group needs to stay focused on the guys in their locker room today.
The on-and-off nature of the Bucks' relationship with their superstar player has led to months of discourse regarding a potential trade. The situation seems to be past the point of reversibility at this point, with one member of Milwaukee's organization telling ESPN's Shams Charania that a team is "not going to win" when their "best player is one foot in, one foot out."
Charania said in that article, on the fractured relationship between Antetokounmpo and the only NBA franchise he's ever played for, that the superstar and his agent have asserted to the team's front office several times that a trade would be best. However, with the Bucks' nine-year playoff streak set to end this year, this saga might actually be over.
Knicks can't get wrapped up in offseason discourse before playoffs start
For the Knicks, it's certainly a strange situation. Fans of the team have waited for decades for their beloved organization to rise to the level of a "free agency destination," somewhere star players hope to land because of a pre-established culture of winning. But with a pivotal playoff run just weeks away, it's a brutal time of the NBA calendar for rumors like this to shake up a locker room.
Fortunately for New York, they have a veteran locker room full of professionals. And even though the deadline unrest resulted in some shaky performances, the team bounced back relatively quickly. They'll need to push any thoughts of offseason changes to the side for up to two months, and that stretch of time officially begins in ten days.