Knicksfan1992 wrote:Like others have stated, I do think Mikal has the best chance to be moved if there's no extension talks. This FO tends to value player control and it's not like Mikal really proved himself an invaluable piece to the team consistently last year.
Maybe the FO talks themselves into a new coach unlocking him and don't want to sell low on a guy they paid a premium for to bring in.
But I also think they could look at this as somewhat of a sunk cost and try to extract as much value to get better fitting pieces in that enhance the core a bit more than Mikal did last season.
I just wonder how the FO would approach a Mikal trade. Would they look to bolster depth or try to use Mikal to get a perceived talent upgrade from somewhere else.
I think with Mikal, I would lean more to getting quality depth and maybe re-stocking our picks a bit but I oculd see the argument to just amplifying the talent level and hoping a coach can get something out of Dadiet, Kolek, and Huk to naturally provide depth
I think with a Mikal trade you would target middling teams looking for some more juice in their SL.
A few ideas I had:
Monk/Keon Ellis/draft comp for Mikal - This is my favorite Mikal for depth trade. Idea would be you get more shot creation and shooting off the bench with Monk. Then you can either start Deuce or Keon and have 48 minutes of good POA defense.
Coby White/Lonzo Ball 1-2 FRPs for Mikal - Similar idea to the above. Bulls have a glut of guards and probably don't want to pay Coby long term with Giddey, Dosunmo, Buzelis and Heurter all there.
Herb Jones/Jordan Hawkins/Alvarado + 7th pick for Mikal - I, admittedly, don't love this one but getting the 7th pick would allow the Knicks to then parlay a bigger deal with possibly Mitch or OG attached. Or they can try to find a productive rookie in this pretty good draft class.
These might all suck upon review but it's really hard to find a good Mikal trade because that 24 million is just tough to work with to get a real impact player or players back.
I’d hope they’d have some idea if Mikal would sign an extension. They did fire the coach for him.
If I was ranking these trades, I’d probably go kings, bulls, pelican. I’d love to get my hands on Colby white and he’s the best player offered up for Mikal but I’m not really sure what lonzo can offer you on the floor at this point. Don’t want to run the risk of making it only being a Mikal for white swap.
On the other hand, Monk and Ellis give you 2 solid role players and getting your hands on a couple kings picks would be amazing trade chips. Start Ellis and OG automatically becomes the third option and the fixes pecking order issue between OG and Mikal. Monk can come off the bench with deuce and hart and be a 6th man. Gives us a solid 8 as long as everyone is healthy for the playoffs.
Love getting my hands on the 7th pick but herb is really injury prone and I’m not sure if Hawkins is even a rotation player. Maybe we get lucky and the 7th pick ends up being one of the immediate stars of the draft but historically we’ve had a bunch of terrible luck in the mid lottery.