Are you waiting for New York Knicks president Phil Jackson to make a season-saving blockbuster deal ahead of the NBA’s Feb. 18 trade deadline?
Well, keep waiting.
From the New York Post‘s Fred Kerber:
The NBA trading deadline is Thursday at 3 p.m., and Knicks fans await a move to reverse the recent fortunes that just before the All-Star break headed farther south than Key West.
If pervading thoughts from several executives around the league prevail, fans should simply anticipate the showdown between Kristaps Porzingis and Karl-Anthony Towns in Minnesota on Saturday.
“I have heard zero with the Knicks. And really, what can they do anyway? Their [tradeable] talent level isn’t that good,” one rival general manager said.
“I would think anything they do would probably be more cosmetic than anything,” said another exec. “They just don’t have the assets.”
It sure sounds like that Jose Calderon, Kyle O’Quinn and Derrick Williams-for-Al Horford and Jeff Teague deal fell through, doesn’t it?
This is how it always is with the Knicks at the trade deadline. They haven’t had enticing assets since the 2010-11 season, during which time they mortgaged the farm for Carmelo Anthony, in what, even now, was clearly a landslide of a mistake. Anthony hasn’t been bad, but they could have signed him in free agency, and forked over heaven and earth anyway.
Maybe it’s just as well that the Knicks don’t have assets to trade. They clearly can’t be trusted with them.
Or maybe Phil Jackson can. Who knows. He sure doesn’t, and he won’t.
Not until the Knicks are back in the business of employing attractive trade assets not named Melo and Kristaps.
