Knicks/Thunder

[JayTWill]

Knicks out/Thunder in - Achiuwa, Payne, 25' Wizards Protected 1st(Top 10 protected in 2025, Top 8 in 2026, becomes 2026,2027 2nds)
Thunder out/Knicks in - Dieng, Worst of their 2025 1st round picks

Achiuwa and Payne seem like they could fill some of OKC's current needs. Precious would be a 4/5 switchable defender. Cam would provide another point guard and a needed scoring punch from the bench. Both are expiring. They kick the worst of their 1sts this year back to a likely high 2nd in 2026 and another 2nd in 2027 with a small chance of the pick becoming a late lottery pick in 2025 or 2026. I'm not sure how much OKC values Dieng at this point or if they have room in their rotation to develop him.

For the Knicks Payne has been better than I expected in his role but they have too many small guards imo and Thibs is going to Thibs so his role fluctuates from normal rotational player to first half rotational player no matter what. They have other guards that could absorb his 5-15 minute role. Precious has been a solid fill-in at the backup 4/5 but he was removed from the rotation last time Robinson returned from injury heading into the postseason.

They swap a protected 1st for a guaranteed 1st while possibly taking a look at a young forward that fits the physical description of the type of players they are lacking. More importantly they add another tradeable salary for the off-season where they should be in better position to make a deal for a difference maker with hopefully a healthy Robinson, another 1st and potentially a young player or two that has shown something with the removal of Precious and Payne from the rotation. It would also open up a roster spot and money to take a look at some of the bigger wing players they have down in the G-League.

I don't see the Knicks as a team ready to contend this year. I'd rather use this year as an evaluation and development year.

[cgf]

Trading away what limited depth we do have seems like a bad idea.

[SuperflyKnick]

Knicks need depth , and you’re trading away 2 out 3 they play ? Moving up couple of spots in the late first round not worth it

[Mavrelous]

Draft day deal of the Wizards pick for the lowest of OKC picks makes sense, but Knicks trading away 33MPG of of depth doesn't make sense right now.

[NoStatsGuy]

Knicks need depth , and you’re trading away 2 out 3 they play ? Moving up couple of spots in the late first round not worth it

yup this trade was made to fill the thunder's holes. The knicks have more holes than them already tho, this is not a trade Leon would make.

we are in win-now mode just as much as them and historically we pick really well on the later picks. i dont think we need to move up a bit

[jayjaysee]

This needs a third team pretty bad with some win now piece going to NY.

Value isn’t the problem in OP imo. OKC’s latest first is currently 21st. Would assume they want decent protection on it given how great Harden has been this years..

[R-DAWG]

The WASH 1st is essentially two high upside 2nds. Given how close the Knicks are to the apron, that combined with Precious salary slot might be more valuable than a late 1st next year.

[JayTWill]

Maybe I should have said this trade is based on the return of Mitch. Last year when Mitch returned Precious was removed from the rotation despite Randle being injured and Bogey being a severe negative while on the court. Hart played a full 48 minutes + a 5 minute OT while Precious collected a DNP last postseason.

Precious' best role on the team imo is at the 4 next to KAT at the 5 but I know Thibs is going to eat as many minutes as possible with OG and Hart there especially in the playoffs. I don't see Precious as a significant difference maker at the 5 for the Knicks. Sims has had a similar impact at the 5 even if Mitch doesn't stay healthy. Cleaningtheglass has the team performing better with Sims at the 5 rather than Precious and the drop off from KAT's rebounding to Precious' may be too significant at the 5 also. The Knicks are already a very small team that doesn't really take advantage of playing small.

Payne was on his way to another 8-9 minute game last night if Doug Christie did not call a timeout to pull his starters in a blowout with 3 minutes left. It's hard for me to say Payne is too important to lose when Thibs barely plays him far too often and it is still January. This is already his 12th game of playing 10 minutes or less.

I would love to take a look at Kolek in that small role but if Thibs is uncomfortable with that he could easily have McBride and Shamet absorb those limited minutes and it may open the opportunity for someone like Mikal, who has an argument for being the team's second best on-ball creator to actually play on-ball.

If you think the Knicks a small move away from contending this year this move does not make sense but I don't think they are.

[JayTWill]

Knicks need depth , and you’re trading away 2 out 3 they play ? Moving up couple of spots in the late first round not worth it

yup this trade was made to fill the thunder's holes. The knicks have more holes than them already tho, this is not a trade Leon would make.

we are in win-now mode just as much as them and historically we pick really well on the later picks. i dont think we need to move up a bit

That's the point of trade. Taking advantage of the holes in a team that is actually in position to win-now to extract some value from 2 guys in Precious and Payne that could easily not be on the roster next year and return no value for a Knicks team that is actually not in position to win-now this year. They have too many holes with too limited of assets to fill them right now.

They will need further internal development of the chemistry of the core, the development of some of their young players combined with adding a significant difference maker through trade which I don't believe they can with their current limited assets which is why I am attempting to improve one of them while the team works on chemistry and development. The protected Wizards pick is less valuable than the Clippers pick at the moment.

Healthy Mitch + pick #18-23? + maybe a young guy that has gained experience or made someone like McBride expendable is more valuable in an off-season move than an injured Mitch + likely 2 2nd's + a young guy that can't even touch the court right now.

The win-now logic was the same logic that caused them to make a short-sighted deal with Detroit last trade deadline even though all the signs pointed to it being highly unlikely a team with 3 starters injured would magically put things together at the end of the season and suddenly surpass Boston. They wasted assets and put themselves in a worse position last off-season just to lose in the 2nd round which they could have done without the Detroit trade.

I believe they have a 9-10 record against the other team in the top 10 of the east despite the core of the team having relatively good health up until this point and Thibs pushing as hard as possible for regular season wins as always. 3 of those wins came against an injury-plagued Magic team. The Bucks and possibly Miami are the only teams the Knicks have shown to match up well against in the top 10 of just the east. What makes you feel like they are truly in a position to win now?

[cgf]

Knicks need depth , and you’re trading away 2 out 3 they play ? Moving up couple of spots in the late first round not worth it

yup this trade was made to fill the thunder's holes. The knicks have more holes than them already tho, this is not a trade Leon would make.

we are in win-now mode just as much as them and historically we pick really well on the later picks. i dont think we need to move up a bit

That's the point of trade. Taking advantage of the holes in a team that is actually in position to win-now to extract some value from 2 guys in Precious and Payne that could easily not be on the roster next year and return no value for a Knicks team that is actually not in position to win-now this year. They have too many holes with too limited of assets to fill them right now.

They will need further internal development of the chemistry of the core, the development of some of their young players combined with adding a significant difference maker through trade which I don't believe they can with their current limited assets which is why I am attempting to improve one of them while the team works on chemistry and development. The protected Wizards pick is less valuable than the Clippers pick at the moment.

Healthy Mitch + pick #18-23? + maybe a young guy that has gained experience or made someone like McBride expendable is more valuable in an off-season move than an injured Mitch + likely 2 2nd's + a young guy that can't even touch the court right now.

The win-now logic was the same logic that caused them to make a short-sighted deal with Detroit last trade deadline even though all the signs pointed to it being highly unlikely a team with 3 starters injured would magically put things together at the end of the season and suddenly surpass Boston. They wasted assets and put themselves in a worse position last off-season just to lose in the 2nd round which they could have done without the Detroit trade.

I believe they have a 9-10 record against the other team in the top 10 of the east despite the core of the team having relatively good health up until this point and Thibs pushing as hard as possible for regular season wins as always. 3 of those wins came against an injury-plagued Magic team. The Bucks and possibly Miami are the only teams the Knicks have shown to match up well against in the top 10 of just the east. What makes you feel like they are truly in a position to win now?

The problem with the bogey trade was that they half assed it because they were looking to the future (this past summer); not that they made a move to bolster that team.

[JayTWill]

yup this trade was made to fill the thunder's holes. The knicks have more holes than them already tho, this is not a trade Leon would make.

we are in win-now mode just as much as them and historically we pick really well on the later picks. i dont think we need to move up a bit

That's the point of trade. Taking advantage of the holes in a team that is actually in position to win-now to extract some value from 2 guys in Precious and Payne that could easily not be on the roster next year and return no value for a Knicks team that is actually not in position to win-now this year. They have too many holes with too limited of assets to fill them right now.

They will need further internal development of the chemistry of the core, the development of some of their young players combined with adding a significant difference maker through trade which I don't believe they can with their current limited assets which is why I am attempting to improve one of them while the team works on chemistry and development. The protected Wizards pick is less valuable than the Clippers pick at the moment.

Healthy Mitch + pick #18-23? + maybe a young guy that has gained experience or made someone like McBride expendable is more valuable in an off-season move than an injured Mitch + likely 2 2nd's + a young guy that can't even touch the court right now.

The win-now logic was the same logic that caused them to make a short-sighted deal with Detroit last trade deadline even though all the signs pointed to it being highly unlikely a team with 3 starters injured would magically put things together at the end of the season and suddenly surpass Boston. They wasted assets and put themselves in a worse position last off-season just to lose in the 2nd round which they could have done without the Detroit trade.

I believe they have a 9-10 record against the other team in the top 10 of the east despite the core of the team having relatively good health up until this point and Thibs pushing as hard as possible for regular season wins as always. 3 of those wins came against an injury-plagued Magic team. The Bucks and possibly Miami are the only teams the Knicks have shown to match up well against in the top 10 of just the east. What makes you feel like they are truly in a position to win now?

The problem with the bogey trade was that they half assed it because they were looking to the future (this past summer); not that they made a move to bolster that team.

You don't think that trade was an attempt to improve the team immediately on any level?

I feel like it was half assed because they were attempting to do too many things at once instead of just committing completely to one thing. They attempted to improve the offense, the experience and the depth from the bench while also trying to put themselves in a better position to make a move last summer. They failed at all of those things other than adding for experience. They would have been better off doing nothing or just trading Fournier's expiring deal for a less desirable 2 year deal at the time like D'Angelo Russell's and possibly picking up an extra asset.

They probably would have been able to get Mikal at a cheaper price at the time by just including what they gave up in the Detroit deal + less 1sts than they ended up sending out. Instead they added Grime's and 2 2nds to Fournier's deal to bring in a "20 point scorer" in Bogey and another on-ball guard Thibs retread in Burks.

They didn't reduce the load on the starters, didn't improve on either end of the court, didn't contend for a championship and Bogey's value tanked in that half a season down to Fournier's level in New York. Bogey then got injured in the playoffs making him a negative contract in the off-season and Burks walked for nothing. It was a waste of time and assets.

[JayTWill]

The WASH 1st is essentially two high upside 2nds. Given how close the Knicks are to the apron, that combined with Precious' salary slot might be more valuable than a late 1st next year.

Which pick do you think has more trade value this off-season? The Wizards protected pick or the Clipper's pick that may fall in the 18-23 range?

I know you have concerns about the apron and you want to have space to use the taxpayer MLE available but the Knicks had access to it last off-season and attracted no one with it. Saric was the only player to sign for the taxpayer MLE. I'm just not sure you will find an obvious difference maker willing to accept the limited Thibs' bench role for a couple million more than the minimum.

Goga was my dream signing last off-season. He got more than the taxpayer MLE just to begin the season as the Magic's 3rd/4th string center. I would have loved to have been able to do a sign and trade for him but they had limited salaries that the team could move even if they wanted to. By the time Precious and other salaries became available to be traded Goga had become the Magic's full-time starting center again. Having another tradeable salary can be a good thing in the off-season.

I feel like some rebuilding team with capspace like the Wizards would absorb Dieng's contract for nothing since he is still very young if the Knicks needed to clear salary. Some teams might even be willing to add a 2nd on top of that.