“What If…” Donovan was a Knick?

A fun "Ask Macri" examines the road not traveled.

Good morning! Hope everyone had a fun summer weekend. Let’s start the week off right.

🗣️ News & Notes ✍️

🏀 Congrats to Quentin Grimes and the USA select team, who beat Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and the rest of Team USA in back to back 10-minute scrimmages on Friday.

The big boys got even and then some on Saturday, winning all three scrimmages against their younger counterparts.

Take that competitive spirit into training camp, boys!

🏀 More on Brunson: Tim Bontemps, covering Team USA for ESPN, speculated on Friday’s Hoop Collective podcast that Brunson would not only start, but would wind up being the de facto leader of Team USA as a veteran with experience leading teams on deep postseason runs.

Then there was this from Team USA head coach Steve Kerr on Saturday, per The Athletic’s Joe Vardon:

“I think Jalen is such a natural leader and because he’s a point guard, you know, he immediately comes to mind. He’s the one who’s leading the, you know, ‘1, 2, 3 USA’ chant.”

Brunson has reportedly been the starting point guard for all scrimmages, along with former ‘Nova teammate Mikal Bridges, fellow CAA client Jaren Jackson Jr, and Brandon Ingram of New Orleans. Cam Johnson started on day one while Anthony Edwards got a turn on day two.

🏀 On the Grimes front, checkout his insightful interview with SNY’s Ian Begley, in which he spoke about what he’s been working on (“Making more plays off the dribble, shooting off the dribble”), his immense respect for Julius Randle (“I think there’s a certain narrative around him, which I think is total bulls--t honestly”), working with JJ Redick, and more.

🏀 Finally, another possible upcoming free agent went off the market with Anthony Davis signing a three-year extension that could be worth up to $186 million - perfect timing after last week’s deep dive into the current state of NBA contracts. The extension will keep him in LA through the 2027-28 season, after which AD will be 35 years old.

That leaves Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jayson Tatum, Donovan Mitchell, Pascal Siakam, Kyrie Irving and Julius Randle as the only players currently under the age of 32 who have made an All-NBA team and are able to hit free agency before 2026. Siakam will be unrestricted next summer, while the other five have player options for the 2025-26 season.

“What If…” Donovan was a Knick?

We’re starting off the week with an “Ask Macri” from comic book creator and Knick fan Mark Sable, who asks:

I'd love to see your take on where the Knicks would be now had they traded for Donovan Mitchell.  Obviously it would hurt to have our draft assets depleted and we would have missed Quick, Grimes and/or RJ, but a trio of Brunson, Mitchell and Randle would have been really interesting. 

(I'm unclear if we would have still been able to trade for Hart). 

Now granted, I’m not online very much these days, but considering how close the Knicks came to pulling off this trade last summer and how much Mitchell-to-NY seems to still be a thing that can happen at some point in the future, I’m surprised this “What If” hasn’t been discussed in greater length. Maybe everyone is just happy to leave it in the past. Or maybe it has been discussed and I just missed it.

Either way, it seems like as good a topic for the dog days of August as anything.

The tough part right off the bat is that we don’t know what the package going to Utah would have been, other than that it a) would have featured RJ Barrett (pre-extension), b) would have seen Evan Fournier sent out for salary purposes, likely to a third team, c) would have included at least two unprotected Knicks picks, d) would have included a few protected firsts, and e) would have included at least one additional young player.

In all likelihood, that additional young player would have been Quentin Grimes or Immanuel Quickley. Based on the reporting at the time and in the immediate aftermath, it seemed like the Quick vs Grimes debate was one sticking point (with New York preferring to send IQ), while the other hangup concerned Utah’s demand for a third unprotected Knicks first. From what I was able to piece together (mostly from Ian Begley’s reporting), it seemed like RJ, Grimes and two unprotected firsts would have gotten it done, as would RJ, IQ and three unprotected firsts.

Given that context, there’s a few ways to go about this “What If ?” We can pretend Cleveland never got involved, and the Jazz eventually circled back to the Knicks and accepted a compromise - let’s say RJ, IQ, two unprotected firsts, two swaps, and three or four protected picks. The other option is to pretend that Utah gave New York one final chance to match the Cavs after Cleveland made their offer, and that Leon Rose ponied up either Grimes or a third unprotected first.

To make life simpler, let’s go with option A: pretending Cleveland never made a real offer, and the Knicks acquired Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gay (for salary purposes) for RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, Evan Fournier (sent to a cap space team), unprotected firsts in 2024 and 2026, swaps in 2023 and 2025, and three protected first rounders. Whew.

That would have made New York’s preferred rotation out of training camp as follows:

• Starters: Brunson, Mitchell, Grimes, Randle, Robinson

• Bench: Derrick Rose, Cam Reddish, Obi Toppin, Isaiah Hartenstein

I’m assuming Deuce McBride would have been left on the outside looking in because Rose hadn’t yet fallen out of favor and we know Tom Thibodeau prefers a nine-man group.

Except Grimes was on the shelf when the season started, which would have meant Deuce did get a shot, likely with Reddish moving into the starting five like he eventually did in early November, relieving an ineffective Fournier. In reality, Grimes only missed six games, after which there wasn’t really an open rotation spot for him with Reddish thriving and Fournier not yet having fully worn out his welcome. In this scenario though, I figure Grimes would not only be back in the rotation after six games, but the starting five.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at New York’s incredibly rocky first 13 games:

This is probably a good time to remember that the Knicks couldn’t hit the far side of a barn over this stretch, ranking 23rd in the NBA in effective field goal percentage and second to last in 3-point percentage. They had an astounding five players with a sub-50 eFG% during this time, including three that would have been sent out in the Mitchell trade: RJ Barrett (48.1 eFG%), Evan Fournier (45.0) and Immanuel Quickley (43.4). Grimes was also sub-50, but in only five games.

Mitchell, meanwhile, was torching the league, averaging 31.6 points with a .513/.434/.875 slash line. It’s not hard to see 6-7 turning into 9-4 or better. From there, the Knicks went out West and went 3-2 (including what the schedule-makers surely assumed would be Mitchell’s return game in Utah, originally slated to be on national television). Let’s assume they still go 3-2. From there, New York lost their next three home games to the Blazers, Grizzlies and Bucks by a combined 13 points with a throttling of the Pistons in between.

In that Portland game, IQ and RJ combined to shoot 12-for-39. Change that to an easy win with no Dame. Let’s also give the Knicks a split in the next two.

That would have had New York bringing a 15-7 record, at worst, into the home game vs the Mavs that represented the low point of their season. Recall that Dallas showed no interest in competing during the first half of that game, but the Knicks were so bad that it didn’t matter, and they frittered away a 15-point lead like it was nothing.

If they win that game, New York enters their home game against a Mitchell-less Cavs team at 16-7, a half game back of the Bucks for second place in the East (or more likely, a half-game up if they’d won either of their matchups with Milwaukee before this point). That was the start of New York’s eight-game winning streak, and a record of 37-22 from December 4 until the end of the season.

Would the Knicks have necessarily done as well with a version of the roster that included Mitchell but was missing Barrett, Quickley, and possibly Hart? It’s tough to say for sure. Arguably the biggest part of their success over the final two thirds of the 2022-23 season was Jalen Brunson truly coming into his own, which may not have happened if Donovan was on the team:

• Brunson before December 4: 21.0 points, 48.5 FG%, 33.3 3P%

• Brunson after December 4: 25.6 points, 49.4 FG%, 45.1 3P%

As an aside, how have we not made a bigger deal out of Jalen Freaking Brunson shooting 45 percent from deep over the final 45 games of last year?!?!?

Actually, let’s make a big fucking deal out of it right now, with some added context: from December 4 onward, Brunson shot an obscene 52.9 percent on catch & shoot threes, but on just 1.9 attempts per game. Meanwhile, RJ Barrett attempted 4.6 catch & shoot threes last season, hitting just 32.2 percent. With Mitchell penetrating and kicking out to Brunson instead of Brunson penetrating and kicking out to Barrett, New York’s offense would have gotten an instant facelift.

Speaking of RJ, we should mention the unpleasant reality of how poorly the team performed when he played last year, getting outscored by 1.2 points per 100 possessions in the 2475 minutes he was on the court. When he sat, the Knicks outscored opposing teams by 9.2 points per 100 in 1516 minutes, a figure which would have led the league by a country mile.

Now throw in the fact that Brunson missed 14 games between December 4 and the rest of the season, and that New York only went 7-7 in those contests. Yes, Immanuel Quickley was awesome in some of those games, including his 38-point career-defining game in Boston. Sounds like a lot to make up for.

Until, that is, you remember Donovan Mitchell scored 38 or more 15 times last season. I’m betting a few of those would have come during the games Brunson missed, meaning they’d likely have been better than .500 in those 14 games.

Put it all together, and I say the Knicks do no worse than equalling their 37-22 finish, which would have given them a final total of #53wins. It also would have put them fourth in the East - exactly the same as Mitchell’s actual team.

Could they have climbed up even higher, passing the 54-win Sixers or even the 57-win Celtics? That depends on whether they still could have made the Josh Hart trade, which itself would have depended on whether they hung on to one of their protected firsts rounders. If they did, I say regardless of which one, it would have been enough to swing the deal.

So I’m putting New York third in the East in this alternate universe, and dropping the Mitchell-less Cavs down to eighth. That would have left us with the following final standings:

1. Bucks

2. Celtics

3. Knicks

4. Sixers

5. Nets

6. Heat

7. Hawks

8. Cavs

😳

My Lord…if you thought losing to Miami in the second round was disappointing, imagine if the Knicks finished with the fourth best record in the NBA and got bounced in the first round by that same Heat team. That might have been enough to get Tom Thibodeau canned, even after a successful regular season.

Or….

Or maybe things go a different way. Maybe Mitchell doesn’t get blinded by the MSG lights, and instead of shrinking against the Knicks, comes up huge as he writes the next chapter in their most storied modern rivalry. If he did that, New York would have faced off against Boston in round two, and had they beaten the Celtics, gone up against Milwaukee or the Sixers for the right to go the Finals. Given how both of those teams performed in the postseason, it’s not hard to imagine a round one win against the battle-tested Heat serving as a springboard for a run to the Finals.

That’s the best case scenario, but it also assumes a lot. For example, this version of the Knicks would have had to rely significantly on Cam Reddish for the entire season. Maybe with a bigger role, he’d have lived up to the moment, but that’s anyone’s guess. Ditto for whether Derrick Rose and/or Deuce McBride would have been able to hold up as rotation players for 82 games. If they weren’t able to swing the Hart trade, that would have made their life more difficult as well.

Either way, the Knicks would still have been able to use their full midlevel this summer, and there’s no reason to think they wouldn’t still have Donte DiVincenzo, even with Mitchell on the roster.

Unless a run to the conference finals / Finals emboldened them to make an even bigger move. Would Grimes plus unprotected firsts in 2028 and 2030 and an unprotected swap in 2029 be enough to pry OG Anunoby from Toronto? Would they be more inclined to make such a move with Donovan on the roster? Even more generally, with how well the last year has gone without Mitchell, would they even still want to pair him with Brunson if such an opportunity arose a year from now?

I’ll tackle that question in a follow-up “Ask Macri”, coming your way tomorrow.

🏀

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