Alec Burks has quietly been producing at a solid rate this season off the bench for the Knicks, a vital cog in the second unit. But could the best move be to trade him, as it has been for his last few teams in recent years?

Alec Burks is a man of many NBA journeys. For now, he’s a New York Knick, and a solid contributor to a feisty team jostling for a playoff spot in the crowded middle of the Eastern Conference. As trade season approaches, Burks seems again to have found that suitcase-shaped sweet spot: definitely good enough to have value, probably not too valuable to give up.

After seven-and-a-bit medically snakebitten seasons with the Utah Jazz, the 12th pick in the 2011 NBA draft has been buffeted and bounced around the league in a transactional whirlwind.

In 2019, Burks was traded as an expiring contract along with two second-round picks to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Kyle Korver. Thirty-four games later, still as an expiring contract, he was traded to the Sacramento Kings in a six-player, four-pick, three-team mega-yawn of a trade. Thirteen games later, he signed with the Golden State Warriors in free agency, a one-year deal for just over $2 million dollars. Forty-eight games later, as an expiring contract, he was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers, along with Glenn Robinson III, for three second round picks. Eighteen games later, in the makeshift 2020 offseason, he signed with the Knicks; on a one-year deal, of course. And here we are, approaching the latest round of pass-the-Alec-Burks.

All of these transactions — from the end of his 4-year rookie extension with the Jazz, to landing with the Knicks this season — took place in less than two calendar years. Two trade deadlines, two offseasons, and one plague: five new jerseys, five new cities, five new apartments. All fueled by the fact that — when he’s healthy, and when he’s given minutes — Burks is a consistently effective player who’s usually available for the loose-change equivalent of an asset: that second-round-pick flotsam any franchise can scrounge together after rummaging around in the right pocket. 

In the last head-spinning few seasons, playing for six total teams, and never more than 48 games in a single jersey, Alec Burks has been admirably and remarkably solid, in the face of extreme NBA flux. Per stathead.com, here are the players from 2018-19 to 2020-21, in more than 250 minutes played, to have combined per-36 minute numbers of more than 17 points, six rebounds, three assists, and four free throw attempts, while shooting 38% or more from three:

Yes, this is a cherry-picked search, to match AB’s baseline across these statistics. But they are a group of statistics — scoring, shooting, rebounding, assists, freebies — that represent a balanced floor game, and 3588 minutes is not a small sample. None of the other players on this very short list, by the way, had to deal with anywhere near the number of airports as Burks — with everything they own as cargo — during this three-season span.

Narrow it down to the last two seasons, during which AB played for the Warriors, Sixers, and Knicks, and the 29-year-old has per-36 numbers of 19.4 points, 5.9 rebounds, 3.7 assists, five free throw attempts, and 39% from three in 2213 minutes. Numbers matched only by the following batch of guys, none of which you could acquire for second round ballast:

If these parameters are a little too narrow for you, for his whole career, over 10 seasons and 11,265 minutes, Burks has per-36 averages of 16.9 points, 5.3 rebounds, 3.1 assists, and five free-throw attempts, at 36% from deep. The players that have hit these marks over their careers since Burks entered the league are, to a name, pretty damn good per-36 company:

The point is not that Burks is as good as Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, or even Zach LaVine, but that he is definitively good, and in a very uniquely well-rounded way. He can score, he can shoot, he gets to the foul line, he helps out on the boards, he can play-make a little. Offensively, he really does do a little bit of everything. And while it’s statistically understandable, given his balanced contributions, why he would so often be a desirable trade acquisition, it’s also a little sad that he hasn’t stuck anywhere since leaving Utah — especially given he’s finally healthy.

Filtering out garbage time, he’s second on the Knicks in on/off impact, as the graphic above shows. He’s also in the 94th percentile in the NBA as a spot-up shooter, per NBA Stats, by far the best on the roster. He’s one of 41 players in the league shooting better than 40% from deep on more than four attempts per game.

As it so often does with the Knicks, it all comes back to spacing. This is a team structurally starved of shooting, with two point guards in Elfrid Payton and Derrick Rose,  and two centers in Mitchell Robinson and Nerlens Noel who do not space the floor at all. Two-fifths of the Knicks’ lineup, for 48 minutes a night, are non-threats. The Knicks’ offense — currently the 24th-best in the league — is a fragile, precarious thing; dangerously reliant on the little shooting it has.

Taking away Burks and his gravity without replacing him with an equivalent shooter could have a low-key catastrophic impact on the Knicks’ half court ecosystem, an impact with spatially-fatal ripples belying his role-player status. AB averages 8.3 minutes per game in the fourth quarter this season, second only to Immanuel Quickley, which tells you all you need to know about the importance — and Thibodeau’s awareness of the importance — of spacing for this feisty Knicks outfit.

Speaking of Quickley, cashing out on an expiring veteran is how the Knicks got the slumping — but supremely tantalizing — rookie, trading Marcus Morris for a late first last deadline. A first may be a bit rich as a price tag for Burks, but his market has a solid precedent of hovering around the region of multiple second round picks. His skillset is likely worth more than that to this particular Knicks roster, which raises the question — considering they’ve already given up a second round pick to acquire Rose — of whether they will — or should — be shopping AB at all as the March 25th trade deadline nears.

Navigating what is shaping up to be a juicy trade season will be both a statement of intent and test of restraint for this fledgling Knicks front office. Leon Rose and Willam Wesley have made no secret of their star-lust, and for all the surprised soundbite-shaped endorsements — plucky! gritty! competitive! — of this roster, it is a first draft of a true winning roster. 

How does Alec Burks and his weary suitcase fit into the Knicks’ future? The winds of fate have not been kind to AB in recent years, and he now finds himself with a franchise always itching to upgrade, with both the means and motive to make moves. We know a player like Burks has value around the league. We also know how uniquely valuable he is for the Knicks. In a vacuum — as a standalone asset grab — this playoff-hungry Knicks organization should probably hold onto the sharpshooting journeyman; but as a domino leading up to a larger helio-driven upgrade, Burks again may fall victim to his own production, and that suitcase-shaped sweet spot.