No KD, No Problem

The Knicks are reportedly out on Kevin Durant, but they might still be able to benefit if he gets dealt.

Good Morning! Slow news day yesterday, but there were a few nuggets of interest.

Ian Begley is the latest Knicks beat reporter to write that Jason Kidd-to-New York isn’t dead yet. On the Memphis front in the aftermath of the Des Bane trade, Kris Pursiainen wrote about a prominent Knicks front office member who would be in favor of pursuing Jaren Jackson Jr if he ever became available, but Shams later reported that the Grizz still plan to build around JJJ and Ja Morant moving forward. Finally, Marc J. Spears is the latest NBA media member to report that the Kevin Durant very much wanted to come to the Knicks, but the Knicks did not reciprocate that interest.

That brings us to…

No KD, No Problem

My oh my, how times have changed.

Imagine someone told you in July of 2019 that Kevin Durant would eventually have interest in joining the Knicks, but that the Knicks would have no interest in acquiring Kevin Durant.

What would you have thought?

For me, it would have been some combination of “KD probably got old and bad” and “the Knicks must have gotten pretty good.”

Now that we’re here in 2025, the Knicks are pretty good and KD is pretty old. He’s also still quite good. Accounting for volume and accuracy, one of the greatest shooters ever just had the best 3-point shooting season of his career. Even at 36 years old, he put up 26, 6 & 4 on ridiculous efficiency with elite offensive impact metrics. He’s missed 27 games over the last two years - not an unmanageable number - but seems to be aging gracefully, with 40-year-old LeBron James as the hopeful blueprint.

Between that profile and the significant questions about whether the current roster can ever go from “very good” to “great,” I think it’s fair to wonder if New York’s front office has the right idea in turning their noses up at the man who spurned them six years ago.

My hope (generally speaking, but especially here) is that the front office knows more than we do, or at least sees something we don’t see. The writing seems to be on the wall for the four most prominent members of the roster - Jalen, KAT, Mikal and OG - to be back next season, but that’s putting an awful lot of faith in the next head coach and/or a different fifth starter to make everything fall into place.

In the playoffs, there wasn’t a single two-man or three-man combination comprised solely from those four players that outscored opponents¹. As a foursome, their net rating was better without Josh Hart (-0.5) than with him (-3.2), but not by a considerable degree, and they were still in the red. In fact, if you factor Josh into the lineup searches with the other four, we do get one two-man combo - KAT and Hart - that outscored teams, by 1.8 points per 100 possessions in 467 minutes. That’s it. The regular season was better, but not convincingly. Again, looking at all the two and three-man combos featuring the top four, none had better than a 6.6 net rating. After January 1, several were in the red.

My initial thought following the postseason was that swapping out one of the key pieces for Durant could make some sense provided they filled in other gaps (no easy task, to be clear), but clearly the front office disagrees. I’ve been fairly critical of them recently, but I actually respect the decision here. Now that they’ve fired the coach, there’s no one left on the chipping block before the ax comes down on their necks. If those four players don’t display markedly better results together next season, Leon Rose & Co. know what’s in store. In bypassing a potential “here for a good time, not a long time” fix in KD, they’re putting their money where their mouth is.

That doesn’t mean they can’t still benefit from the Durant trade sweepstakes.