This group of Knicks had learned to play well together. This group had enjoyed some wonderful success beginning last year, with a terrific push down the stretch and a satisfying first-round playoff win over the Cavaliers. This group had mostly carried that over to this year, showing splashes of its finest qualities: resilience, grittiness, work ethic.
But one other thing had become apparent about this group.
It had reached its ceiling.
That was fine, on one hand. You can generate a lot of excitement in a basketball city like this one with a 44-to-48-win team that plays hard every night. And in many ways, RJ Barrett had symbolized this rise from the dust: just as the Knicks had gotten better most every year (save for 2021-22), so, too, had Barrett. If the Knicks as a whole were bumping against that ceiling, it feels like Barrett may still have a few stories higher to climb.
But Leon Rose still did the right thing here.
He decided to mix things up. It cost him, sure; Barrett is a polarizing figure among Knicks fans — maybe not quite the lightning rod Julius Randle is, but it’s there: some swear by him, some swear at him — yet he is still young and still getting better. Immanuel Quickley has been a Garden favorite from the start, and his instant offense off the bench will be something Tom Thibodeau is going to have to find a replacement for, and fast.
But in OG Anunoby, the Knicks acquire a two-way player who ought to be a perfect fit inside their core rotation. Just by showing up he improves the Knicks’ defense, which never has been exactly lock-down but has been especially lagging since Mitch Robinson was lost for the season. And if Anunoby’s offensive numbers don’t match Barrett’s, his is a game that requires the ball far less frequently than Barrett, and in an offense where Randle and Jalen Brunson command the ball so much, that’s significant.
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And don’t sleep on one of the secondary names in the deal, either. The addition of Precious Achiuwa provides an immediate strengthening of the Knicks’ interior. The fact this deal didn’t cost the Knicks any of their glut of first-round picks or the asset that is Evan Fournier’s expiring contract means that Rose still has those weapons for when he makes what now feels like an inevitable second big swing by the trade deadline.
Back in July, when the Knicks and Anunoby were first linked, a longtime NBA executive familiar with both the Knicks and the Raptors told me: “The Knicks are a really nice team. There’s nothing wrong with having a really nice team, at all. But there’s only so much you can expect to achieve with a really nice team.”
Reached Saturday, not long after the deal was consummated, he added this coda: “They still aren’t in the same conversation as the Bucks, the Celtics, or the 76ers. But I think this is going to make those teams think a little differently about what the Knicks might be capable of in four months.”
Maybe. Maybe not. Time will tell. And the departed will sting, for sure. Barrett especially was a favorite of the younger generation of Knicks fans. Quickley’s game has a high dazzle factor, and that also was quite appealing to Knicks fans. Both are young enough that there could well be some seller’s remorse down the road.
But the Knicks certainly have the potential to be better in a few weeks’ time than they were when Saturday dawned. It’ll take some time to rejigger what had become a standard nine-man rotation. It’ll take some time to integrate the new guys into the fold. It’s also likely that Barrett and Quickley may have a more immediate impact in Toronto than Anunoby, Achiuwa and Malachi Flynn have in New York.
But the Knicks will be better off for this over the long haul. They’ve addressed two huge areas of concern — defense and the guard glut — and have set themselves up nicely for whatever Rose might be able to pull off in February. Sports teams are like sharks, after all: they have to keep moving or they die.
The Knicks are moving forward. They shook up their comfortable core. It was the right thing to do.
