BREAKING: RJ & IQ Traded for OG Anunoby

It's a day of emotions as OG Anunoby comes to New York, while Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett are Knicks no more.

Good evening…

A Day of Emotions

Trying to divorce the emotions involved in this trade from the analysis of the trade itself is like trying to eliminate the emotional aspect of two people getting married.

Regardless of where you fall on the “we root for laundry” sliding scale of fandom, it is literally impossible to root for a team without rooting for the players that comprise it.

If you’ve been a fan of the Knicks for any part of the last quarter century or so, that has been a dicy proposition. For long stretches of time, we have been the highway rest stop bathroom of NBA player movement. We’re the stall you open up, take one look at, and decide you’d rather shit your pants than sit down and do your business there.

There were a few exceptions - KP, David Lee, Nate Robinson, Danilo Galinari for a hot minute, maybe a few more - but when it came down to players you genuinely wanted to root for (and more importantly, had fun rooting for because the team was actually winning games), the New York Knickerbocker franchise has been as barren as any in the league since the end of the Ewing era.

So when after all that, players like RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley come along in back to back years and not only look the part, but do so in a winning environment, the notion of trading them both away in the same deal is a tough pill to swallow on multiple levels.

🏀 Level 1: These guys are still young.

🏀 Level 2: They’re good now, and have shown varying degrees of promise to become even better.

🏀 Level 3: They were part of winning teams, and in the case of Immanuel Quickley at least, clearly contributed to that success.

🏀 Level 4: It’s not readily apparent at first glance that OG Anunoby brings the Knicks any closer to a title than they were yesterday.

When you factor all that in, it’s not remotely surprising to see reactions to this trade as mixed as they are.

And that’s before you add in the emotional aspect.

RJ and IQ loved being Knicks, and just as importantly, seemed to cherish being loved by New York. With Barrett, for any imperfections he may have had, he came to the franchise when they were perhaps the least desirable location in professional sports and couldn’t have been happier about it. Quickley not only possessed that same joy, but showed it in the biggest of moments - moments he was responsible for - in a way that wasn’t cocky or conceited, but endearing to anyone who has a heart.

To lose all that in one fell swoop is difficult to process, let alone support.

And yet, the reality of sports is that we all ultimately root for laundry, because no player can play long enough to outlast the period of our rooting interest.

For Leon Rose, his task - as is the case with anyone who runs a professional sports organization - is to divorce any emotions from his assessment and view all transactions through the coldest and hardest of prisms. It isn’t, and in fact can not be, his responsibility to think about how a trade will play out amongst the fan base.

And divorcing the emotions from the facts at hand, this trade ultimately came down (or will come down) to several factors:

• Could Immanuel Quickley ever reach his full potential (and thus, allow the Knicks to maximize his value as an asset) on the same roster as Jalen Brunson, and if not, what (and when) would be the most advantageous use of him?

• On a related note, is Immanuel Quickley SO good that it was incumbent upon the Knicks to make the necessary moves to facilitate his ability to be successful here, and what would be the opportunity cost / likeliness of that outcome?

• Would RJ Barrett ever find consistency, and if so, how likely was it that he’d find said consistency on a roster with Julius Randle, a player who he has developed precisely zero on-court synergy with over the last four and a half years?

• Is there any world where a team bookended by Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle as franchise tentpoles could succeed at the highest of levels without a truly elite defensive wing that offered size, versatility, off-ball gravity, and enough creation juice to keep defenses honest? If not, when and where was a better opportunity coming along than right here and right now to acquire such a player?

• Relatedly - and this is the real crux of this whole shebang - where was that trade coming from in which the Knicks didn’t have to give up a single first round pick, protected or otherwise?

• And to bring is back to the top, what’s wiser: to acquire such a wing using valuable first round draft capital - draft capital that remains the most liquid form of currency in the NBA - that thus couldn’t be used in future deals, or use Quickley as the gold chip in the trade in light of the existing questions about his future place on the roster?

That’s the detailed breakdown. It’ll read as gobbledygook to anyone convinced that either Immanuel Quickley or RJ Barrett is a future multi-time All-Star. If you’re reading this newsletter, the odds are that you think (or at one time have thought) that such a future existed for at least one, if not both.

I’m part of that club. The outline of RJ Barrett remains maddeningly enticing even if the data about his impact on winning is what it is. As for Quickley, I’d actually be surprised if he didn’t flirt with All-Star consideration a few times playing alongside Scottie Barnes, provided the Raptors can get their shit together and get one more impact piece that makes more sense alongside Barnes than Pascal Siakam.

I know this about Quickley because we saw it, when he averaged an efficient 23, 5 & 5 in 21 games as a starter last season, usually running the show in place of Jalen Brunson. Barnes is arguably a better lead dog to pair with Quickley than Randle, and the Raps have zero impediments to handing IQ the keys and letting him cook. He’s going to look awesome.

Anunoby, by contrast, may have a tough adjustment playing alongside two ball-dominant forces in Brunson and Randle. He isn’t a guard, doesn’t “create” in the traditional sense, and will need to rely on the players and system around him to really exploit his strengths.

In short, there will be moments when this trade looks bad this season. Maybe really bad (and that’s without even considering the possibility that RJ finds a comfort level playing for his home country).

But none of the above changes the fact that the Knicks were between a rock and a hard place, and neither Immanuel Quickley nor RJ Barrett represented an escape from that conundrum.

RJ’s issues are well documented, with him often failing to do many (any?) of the “big wing” things that he was supposed to provide. Him in his current state was more an impediment than a help to the progress of the franchise.

Quickley is a different story. Perhaps there was a world where he became the starter alongside Brunson, as I’ve been advocating for recently. Maybe they’d have needed to find a new coach to make it happen. Who cares. Coaches are hired to be fired, right?

Great. Let’s say it happened and it looked great. Would it have made them any safer of a bet to topple either of the East’s lead dogs in the coming years? Boston has size at every position. Ditto for Milwaukee aside from Dame, who neither Brunson nor Quick has a chance at guarding one on one. Those teams would target New York’s lack of size with a frightening level of relentlessness.

Quickley is a wonderful offensive player, but is he good enough to elevate a Brunson/Randle core to the level of a Denver (last year) or Milwaukee (this year) - the sort of team that bets on a league average defense because it knows it can outscore anyone, at any time, in a big spot? I don’t see it. If not, where’s the versatile wing piece that’s puts them over the top in that regard?

And around and around we go.

(This probably isn’t a great time to bring up IQ’s performance in the playoffs last season, when teams actually had time to game plan for him. But I digress…)

Oh, and if they didn’t make this trade for Anunoby, guess who’d have been the leader in the clubhouse to sign him this summer? That’s right…the team with the big guy down in Philly. They’re already going to a tough matchup for the Knicks. Imagine if they added another piece of this magnitude.

Those are only three teams, but they’re the only three teams that matter when it comes to where the Knicks now find themselves, on the doorstep of contention, where every move has to be in furtherance of attaining the ultimate prize.

Perhaps they could have tried a Brunson / Quickley backcourt out for one playoff run and saw how it went before making this decision, but if it didn’t get the expected results, it was always going to more difficult to get a commensurate return in a sign and trade scenario, let alone a return that checks as many boxes as Anunoby.

Of course there is a possibility it would have worked. We’ll never know. That, as well as whatever remaining upside RJ possesses, is why the trade is a risk.

But so is every trade, and the Knicks were never, ever going to sit tight with what they had.

In acquiring Anunoby, they’re getting a piece that every single team in the NBA would kill to have. He is as versatile a chess piece as exists in the league right now who isn’t a bona fide “star” (and he’s a hell of a lot more versatile than a lot of stars, including both on New York’s roster). There is a reason the front office has coveted him for more than a year. They know what is obvious, which is that the only prayer of a Brunson / Randle combo ever working is with a Swiss Army Knife like Anunoby between them.

(I keep writing “a player like Anunoby,” which is disingenuous. There is no player in the league with his precise collection of two-way skills.)

And if that doesn’t work out? Well, you’re in the same spot you’re in now: needing to upgrade one of the core pieces for a bigger, better star player. Except now you have a better trade chip as the centerpiece of that package (or, more likely, you package Randle will allllllll of the picks for [insert MVP candidate here].)

My guess is (as Ian Begley all but reported) that another significant move is coming - something that will give this front office the very best opportunity to judge the ceiling of a Brunson/Randle core, and whether these Knicks can actually be their own version of the 2004 Pistons.

But that’s a conversation for another day. For right now though, it is a day filled with both hope and sadness.

Whether that ratio is 50/50 or 90/10 one way or another is up to you.

Whichever one it is, everyone is justified in feeling whatever they feel today.

That’s fandom at its finest.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”