Why it’s hard to feel good about the Knicks’ blockbuster trade
Contributed by: Jose Marco Terrado
As a New York Knicks fan, I do not know how to feel.
Shams Charania announced on September 28 that the New York Knicks are trading Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Karl Anthony-Towns.
Objectively, this sounds like a great trade: Towns is the answer Knicks fans have been waiting for after losing Isaiah Hartenstein to the Oklahoma City Thunder last July. He’s got a career average of 22.9 points per game built on a reliable jump shot, he shoots 39.8% from the three-point line, and he gathered 10.8 rebounds per game last season. Comparing that with who we lost and will be losing, he is definitely a significant upgrade from Hartenstein and Randle. Also, a shooting big with a roster stacked with wings sounds like a perfect fit.
Just imagine this closing line-up for the Knicks: Jalen Brunson- Josh Hart – Mikal Bridges – OG Anunoby – Karl Anthony-Towns. These are five players you can trust in late-game situations, with Mitchell Robinson a back-up big man for defensive purposes.
Likewise, it’s a big relief for Knicks fans since we were almost about to have Precious Achiuwa as our starting center this season since Mitchell Robinson’s ankle injury recovery timeline has left him unavailable for opening day. We were even at the point where we could half-joke about Josh Hart playing at the 5. It was that bad, and perhaps that’s why Leon Rose picked up his phone and started doing negotiation magic.
But there’s something about this trade that a Knicks fan can’t help but feel sad about:
We just lost Donte DiVincenzo – the hero of Game 2 of the Knicks-Sixers series last season. The guy who broke out during the playoffs and gave us an average of 17.8 points that playoff run. The much-needed spark plug of the Knicks during crucial moments of the game when Jalen Brunson would have an off night. Most importantly, he was a quarter of what could have been the complete version of the Nova Knicks this coming season.
And let’s not belabor the point about Randle. The recent Manila visitor loves New York. He came to the Knicks while we were at rock bottom, winning just 17 games the season prior. In his first season, it wasn’t any much better – he only won 21 games with the Knicks and didn’t even make it to the 2020 bubble. Any player would have easily been demotivated about playing for the sorry Knicks back from 2018 to 2020. But not Randle.
A lot of fans would have attributed the Knicks’ success to last year’s breakout performance of Jalen Brunson. However, I think that the Knicks would not be where they are today without Randle sticking around and leading the team back into playoff contention in 2021. Randle gave the Knicks hope. He gave New York a hero when it badly needed one while it was still in basketball hell. And letting him go, not even without a proper farewell game, knowing that his final play as a Knick was the play that injured him last January, just feels bad.
I guess that’s why as a Knicks fan, I couldn’t make up my mind about how I feel about this trade. I’ve been used to watching an NBA team that had no serious chances of winning the NBA championship at all. That all changed in January, when the Knicks seemed to get it right with the OG Anunoby trade. Then Randle got injured. Then we still kept winning and finished second in the East. Then Mitchell Robinson got injured. Then we beat the Sixers, only to run out of healthy players to beat the Pacers. Then we kept OG after almost a month of uncertainty. Then we picked up Mikal Bridges to complete the Nova Knicks. Then we lost Hartenstein. And now this.
In short, a lot has happened since the Knicks started becoming a championship-caliber team, and as a fan who’s been through hell, I’m still not used to it. Maybe this is what it’s like to win a ring: you need to make the tough choices. As a fan, letting go of these two players feels like a tough choice, even if it ultimately might be for the better.
Right now, the New York Knicks are set to be one of the few teams in the East that can squarely match up with the defending champion Boston Celtics. Getting KAT might be a turning point in our journey to getting our first championship since the Nixon Administration. And if and when we do, we shouldn’t forget how guys like Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo paved the way.
