Welcome to the new age
Two blockbuster trades in one summer tells you all you need to know about the new New York Knicks & the era they've embarked on
This week, I walked out of one storm and into another. Hurricane Helene touched down in my town in Georgia Friday morning. When I woke up the front porch of my home had caved in. There were more trees seated horizontally than standing vertically. I’m (still) without power, cell service or running water.
Living in a house without “the luxuries,” but whose walls still stand tall, reminded me of the New York Knicks from 2013-2020. Little could be said for a team without the requisite characteristics that, depending on your outlook, border both necessity and luxury: a culture that’s alluring to free agents; top young talent; a star. The same can be said for my living arrangements: it’s a house. No one can argue that. But are its conditions truly livable?
Before I could go through the futile, seemingly endless cycle of emotions that the aforementioned train would take me on, I found cell service, and with was brought up to date on Leon Rose and company’s latest gamble/maneuver/inarguable blockbuster: “The Minnesota Timberwolves are nearing a trade to send All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks.”
With that, I was thrust back into the storm – the emotional variety – and left no choice but to register life as a Knicks fan without Donte DiVincenzo, Julius Randle and the Detroit Pistons’ ever-fascinating top-13 protected 2025 first-round pick. On a larger scale, I had to come to terms with a reality where the Knicks, after years of playing the part of bystanders, or even “storm chasers,” have pushed themselves into the eye of two of the NBA’s biggest cyclones this summer – three, if you zoom out and include the midseason deal for OG Anunoby. To recap, this is everything New York has traded for Anunoby, Towns, Mikal Bridges and the rights to raw young big James Nnaji, all in a span of 274 days:
Julius Randle
Donte DiVincenzo
RJ Barrett
Immanuel Quickley
Bojan Bogdanović
Charlie Brown Jr.
Duane Washington Jr.
DaQuan Jeffries
Unprotected first-round picks in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031
Milwaukee’s 2025 top-4 protected first
Detroit’s 2025 top-13 protected first
An unprotected pick swap in 2028
Second-round picks in 2024, 2025, 2026 (Golden State’s) and 2013
That’s six first-round picks, a pick swap, four second-round picks, three starters, a budding sixth man, three roster fillers and a guy who hit two big threes in a playoff game that one time.
All from the same front office that once turned its nose up at the price tag for Donovan Mitchell (and dealing with Danny Ainge, period) despite the star’s clear interest plus an entire fandom manifesting that the deal get done. It’s a changing of the times in the Big Apple.
Rose was brought to New York in part due to his business savvy and relationships with current and former players. Both have played major parts in his presidential tenure, though neither in the way that was expected, at least not by me. If you had Rose trading away most of the organization’s young talent and draft picks by the end of his fourth full year in office, kudos.
While Barrett had his fair share of struggles in New York, Quickley exhibited a light-hearted naïveté and promise such that fans almost couldn’t bring themselves to blame him for even his worst moments. Both were shipped to the Toronto Raptors when Rose wagered a favorite of “the family” who carried light onto each court he terrorized (while smirking, mind you) and a black sheep of the Knicks youth for potentially half a year of elite defense. It paid off, with Anunoby re-signing this summer, but the sentiment cannot be ignored in hindsight.
Rose went back to the race track this summer, going all in on a business model based almost entirely on the intangible essence of friendship. Bridges was reunited with his former college teammates, who’d just pulled off a nearly miraculous postseason run, all injuries considered. Ever bet on a horse because you liked its name? I’m not saying that’s what the Bridges trade was. Perhaps if you’d also crunched the film on the aforementioned mare before placing your bet . . . (You won’t find a racing horse named “Power of Friendship,” but from 1980-85 there was a largely successful steed named “Friend Power.” Over 30 races he finished first eight times and runner-up five times. Moving on.)
Even then, Rose broke up the newest formation of talent, cutting ties with the theme of his previous blockbuster by pulling off another. Villanova’s foursome became a threesome before they ever took the court in an Avengers-themed ensemble. DiVincenzo, who set New York’s franchise record for 3-pointers made in a game and a season, followed the footsteps of his predecessor Evan Fournier by being scrapped almost immediately thereafter. Okay, maybe he was a valuable piece instead of a nagging veteran on the bench, but the similarities in their ascents and subsequent removals are hilariously intertwining. I’ll miss Donte’s Inferno. The Knicks will too.
Randle was the team’s Batman. A hero who emerged from the darkness of his own past failures, and brought a sometimes grim justice to the metropolis’ street-level inadequacies on the hardwood. But almost every Batman story features the emergence of a Nightwing (née Robin). Randle – and credit to Tom Thibodeau – took a New York team that finished 21-45 on a euphoric climb to 41-31 the following season, ending the franchise’s eight-year postseason drought. He remained a centerpiece of their return to contention, and a controversial one at that, up until his season-ending shoulder injury last season. Extension talks stalled and Randle’s time with the Knicks came to a close almost as abruptly as the team’s rise from the shadows of putridity.
The old era of New York Knicks basketball and business alike was about waiting for the right opportunity. Today’s regime won’t wait long. There will be time to talk about Towns’ fit in New York through the prism of X’s and O’s. Anunoby and Bridges’ fits are well-chronicled here at The Strickland and other platforms. But on a broader scale, there’s never been a more exciting time to be a Knicks fan. A franchise whose next moves can’t be anticipated is a franchise perpetually capable of reaching new heights. You literally never know what’s coming next.
For a list of places you can donate money to help Hurricane Helene’s survivors, click here. Blood donations are always urgently needed after disasters; click here to reach the Red Cross.