The murmurs surrounding a potential Giannis Antetokounmpo trade have heated up in recent days, which has naturally thrust the Knicks — now at 15-7 and winners of seven of their last 10 — into the rumor mill.
The Mecca of Basketball is reportedly atop the perennial MVP candidate’s preference list, so the Knicks should have a fair shot at the star if they put together their best offer, the question is should they?
The case for trading for Giannis
Despite having seven different champions in seven different seasons, one thing stayed constant about modern NBA champions: employing a generational superstar. Now while Jalen Brunson deserves every superlative in the book, including MVP candidate, Antetokounmpo is undoubtedly in another tier of greatness.
For reference, Giannis is averaging 29.9 points, 11.8 rebounds and six assists on 57.7 percent shooting from the field — over the last seven seasons. He was off to an even hotter start this year before injury.
He’s only five seasons removed from an NBA Championship and Finals MVP, and another year from back-to-back MVPs. He’d have more hardware if not for other rising stars and the Bucks roster slowly disintegrating around him.
So it’s easy to imagine this peak-Shaq-esque production in an improved context and not really gripe much about the cost. Care about losing Karl-Anthony Towns and you’re replacing him with an equally threatening scorer, care about losing OG Anunoby and you’ve replaced him with another Defensive Player of the Year frontrunner.
A Giannis trade will likely have to cost two of them or other key rotation pieces, along with draft capital, a predictable and necessary pill to swallow to pair him with Brunson. Doing so maximizes your championship ceiling, which has been the ultimate goal of the Leon Rose era in New York.
Concerns about filling out the rest of the roster can be addressed at the trade deadline and by calling on current fringe rotation guys to step up. Last year’s Thunder were an aberration with their impressive depth, built up by years of tanking and trading — most recent champs grinded it out with a core eight-man rotation.
Those worried about Antetokounmpo’s fit with a smaller guard after the Damian Lillard combination blew up should note that Brunson’s younger and much more adept at screening and being a threat off the ball. Lillard also needed a year to adjust to his new surroundings, and the Bucks went through a midseason firing trying to right the ship.
The Knicks have a far stronger foundation to build a winner around Brunson and Antetokounmpo, with even their ill-fitting assets being valuable enough to swap if need be. You can nitpick fit and asset management to death, or you can trade for a top-five talent in the league and live with the results.
The case against trading for Giannis
Unfortunately, the concerns with an Antetokounmpo fit are more than nitpicky. Almost any variation of this trade, save for moving Brunson, leaves more basketball questions than answers.
Dealing Towns leaves New York’s center rotation down to an ailing Mitchell Robinson, Ariel Hukporti and Trey Jemison III. Outside of the overall talent, none of them can space the floor for Antetokounmpo, a long-standing must out of his frontcourt mate.
Antetokounmpo never spent more time at the five than he had to in his youth, and likely won’t want to do it more now that he’s past 30. Assuming the trade is Towns and a wing, you could trade one of Josh Hart or Mikal Bridges for a five to help smooth out the starters, but it’s impossible to ignore how thin the rotation looks after all these moves.
If the Knicks deal “Wingstop” for Antetokounmpo and manage to keep Towns, they’ll be in a similar glut on the wing, forced to rely on Hart, their guards, potentially Kyle Kuzma, Mohamed Diawara and whatever a potential Robinson trade could bring. Even if that’s addressed, the on-court chemistry may take longer to materialize than people expect.
Towns hasn’t found his full rhythm in this Mike Brown offense yet. How would that go with a second alpha in front of him on the touch ladder? Defensively, would he still be able to anchor things come playoff time without the strong defensive depth once surrounding him on this team?
There’s also more to the Brunson-Antetokounmpo question than simply dismissing the Lillard situation at face. Antetokounmpo captured his title alongside two big guards in Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday that ran a ton of pick-and-roll with him as both handlers and screeners.
Even with his off-ball game, it’s not clear Brunson can replicate that formula, especially making the tough passes to Antetokounmpo when crowded on screens at his size. Those were also relatively low-usage guards that could defer to Giannis at any time, while Brunson, though flexible, primarily needs his hands on the ball.
Finally, the cost of the trade is going to eat the Knicks' present and future chances of winning, for only a small bump to their championship ceiling. The Spurs and anybody with a similar asset pile is ready to offer up the boat for Giannis, and to match New York will have to part with every remaining scrap of its draft capital and rotational depth.
You do that for a sure thing, and while Antetokounmpo is as close as you’re getting, he’s 31 years old with a battery of injuries down his resume and a ton of questions to answer once he arrives. This doesn’t even get to the opportunity cost of such a trade.
Right now, the Knicks are a favorite to get out of the East, and few of their counterparts have the juice for an Antetokounmpo trade. That means New York can stand by, count its wins, watch him likely leave the conference and only have to worry about a bunch of teams they’ve already bounced out of the playoffs in years prior.
Why sacrifice that, and this impressive core that’s coming together, in a midseason blockbuster trade? The Knicks are in contention mode, not desperation mode, and this move reeks more of the latter than the former.
Eric Samulski
