Briefing: May 28
What if the Knicks traded for Kyle Lowry?
Good Morning,
Hope you enjoyed your Memorial Day weekend. Let’s get back to it…
Knicks will have scouts Mike Smith and Kristian Petesic at the Pro Day for RJ Barrett in Los Angeles on Tuesday, according to Adam Zagoria.
Barrett will not participate in workouts, but presumably will meet with the Knicks. [Marc Berman]
Dennis Smith Jr’s trainer isn’t worried about DSJ fitting alongside RJ Barrett or potential free agents next season: “First and foremost, Dennis Smith can play with dinosaurs (laughs). He can play with anybody. We can go down to the elderly home and he can play with them.” [Ian Begley]
What is he working on this offseason? “Besides repetition with his shooting, he's going to do some mechanical tweaks. He's realized that there are some things in his mechanics that have to change…he's [also] on board with trying to be the most well-conditioned athlete on the floor." [Ian Begley]
Bernard King says Kevin Knox was receptive to his teachings this season. King noted one area, in particular, where he thinks Knox needs to improve: “I spoke to him about how he runs the floor. Some people think it’s elementary. It’s not. I’m not criticizing Knox but you can always improve how you run the floor. It was one of the things I did very well.” [Marc Berman]
Bernard King thinks the Knicks are an attractive free agent destination: “I believe … [the Knicks] have a group of men who clearly know and understand the game, and they’re good managers. Any player should want to play in a city like New York.” [Marc Berman]
Derek Fisher likes the steps the Knicks are taking to return to respectability. He said in an interview with Sports Illustrated that he thinks it will probably end up working out best for both the Knicks and Kristaps Porzingis to have split ways. [Watch]
MUST LISTEN: Jon and JB pod live from Macri's kitchen table (as their kids play outside). We talk about what the Knicks should take (or not take) from the Raptors' success on the Anthony Davis front, do an in depth breakdown on the cap situations for New York's main competitors this summer, and talk about why team-building philosophies aren't always as clear cut as we make them out to be. [iTunes | SoundCloud]
MUST READ: Home Is Where the NBA Titles Are Grown
by Zach Kram | The Ringer
The Knicks and Lakers are putting all of their hopes of building a superteam on their transactions this offseason. But an analysis of NBA champions shows that when it comes to finding title-winning talent, there’s no place like home.
What if the Knicks traded for Kyle Lowry?
by Jonathan Macri
Hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day filled with assorted grilled meats topped with your condiment of choice (don’t let anyone make you feel like less of a person for putting ketchup on a hot dog, as God intended).
This weekend, we saw the Toronto Raptors make the NBA Finals. Despite the fact that this ups the odds of Kawhi Leonard staying - something that's almost certainly bad for the Knicks - I can't lie: I'm happy for them. Kawhi is a real one, and watching a special athlete go full supernova over a playoff run like he just did is why we watch sports. There's a part of me that'll be pulling for them against Golden State, consequences be damned.
This run wouldn't have happened, of course, without the help of the Knicks. Let's start by going back almost exactly a decade ago, when the Knicks had the 8th pick in the 2009 NBA Draft. Everyone remembers that Steph Curry went one pick ahead of them, but the guy selected one spot after they drafted the immortal Jordan Hill was just as significant. Not only did DeMar DeRozan help set this era of Toronto basketball in motion, but he was the centerpiece of the trade for Kawhi nine years later.
The man who made that deal, Masai Ujiri, has been masterful as general manager and then president of the Raptors, a job he got in part because of his work in Denver, where the Carmelo Anthony trade still serves as the blueprint for how best to navigate dealing a star when your back is against the wall. He's continued to shine ever since.
He's also gotten lucky, which leads to the third and most direct tie-in between the Raptors and Knicks: the trade that wasn't made - one that inextricably altered the fates of both franchises.
The time was right around the holidays in 2013. Ujiri had just traded away Rudy Gay, nominally the Raptors' best player, in what was supposed to be the opening salvo in a full on tank. Next up was Kyle Lowry, the 27-year-old journeyman who appeared to finally be coming into his own but also was seen as a sell-high candidate at the time.
According to Lowry himself, the trade with the Knicks that would have shipped the former Villanova Wildcat to New York in exchange for Iman Shumpert and a future first round pick was a done deal. The story goes that James Dolan didn't want to get pantsed by Ujiri again and nixed the transaction. The Knicks season never got on track, Phil Jackson was hired, and it's too early in the morning for a drink so I'll stop there. Toronto went on to make the playoffs and the following season, Lowry made the first of five consecutive All-Star teams.
Playing the sliding doors game is always fraught with peril, but it's not that hard to see how this would have gone for the Raptors. They were 11-15 on Christmas, which is about when this deal would have gone down. They ended up going 37-18 the rest of the way, a record that likely would have been flipped without Lowry.
This is where things get interesting. The 2014 draft was headlined by the apparent savior of Canadian basketball, Andrew Wiggins, who the Cavs famously jumped up from nine to one to select before dealing him to Minnesota for Kevin Love. It's entirely possible that Toronto would have fallen into Cleveland's lottery slot and gotten the first pick themselves, but would Ujiri have taken Wiggins, or would he have taken a chance on his teammate with the broken foot, Joel Embiid, and risk being run out of town?
Whether he landed one of those two or ended up with someone like Marcus Smart or Julius Randle at a draft spot commensurate with their likely final record, the Raps almost certainly would have been bad again, and likely would have entered the 2015 draft with another high pick. At that point, they may have ended up with a lanky seven-footer from Latvia...or a talented point guard who just finished up a year playing in China.
Speaking of He Who Shall Not Be Named, not making the Lowry deal was the first domino to fall in the sequence of events that led to the Knicks drafting KP. Had they made that trade, they almost certainly would have made the playoffs in 2014 (they finished just a game out). At that point, Mike Woodson likely gets retained as coach, and Melo almost certainly still re-signs with the team. The bad blood that festered in the locker room thanks to a season gone off the rails probably never gets a chance to circulate, and with no need for a new point guard, Tyson Chandler doesn't get dealt to Dallas for Jose Calderon. Iman Shumpert and JR Smith don't get traded for spare parts, and the 2014-15 season goes from a 17-win tankathon to who knows what.
Whatever happens, the Knicks enter 2015 in a very different position than the one they were in. Amare and Chandler came off the books that summer, which opened up the cap space used to sign Robin Lopez, Arron Afflalo, Derrick Williams and Kyle O'Quinn. If they were coming off their fifth consecutive playoff appearance and had All-Stars Carmelo Anthony and Kyle Lowry on the roster, would they have gotten a meeting with LaMarcus Aldridge? Paul Millsap? DeAndre Jordan? Would they have given the Cavs a run for their money before Cleveland ever got a chance to upset the 73-win Warriors? Does New York make the Finals and get steamrolled by Golden State, thus negating the impetus for Kevin Durant to go the Bay Area in the first place? Does KD then end up on the Celtics, who probably had the best chance of stealing him away from OKC? Is the Kyrie still traded to Boston, or does Lowry wind up as the centerpiece of a deal to get Irving to New York in the summer of 2017?
Or maybe would things have still gone to shit regardless. Who the hell knows? Either way, you can argue that James Dolan stepping in when he did altered the course of NBA history not just for these two teams but for the league at large. Perhaps if they win it all, Ujiri can send him a fake Knicks Kyle Lowry jersey as a thank you for his trouble. That's about the least he could do.
Remember when…
May 28, 1974: Knicks acquire forward Howard Porter and a 1975 second-round draft pick (Larry Fogle) from Chicago in exchange for first-round draft pick in the 1974 draft (Maurice Lucas). [Read more on the 1974 draft from Vivek Dadhania]
May 28, 1971: Knicks guard Walt Frazier scores 26 points to lead the NBA All-Star team to a 125-120 victory over the ABA in the first game between the two professional rival leagues.
Thanks for reading, talk to you tomorrow!