The Knicks got their man, and that’s a good thing. Donte DiVincenzo joins ex-Villanova mates Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, and that would absolutely make the Big East quake in fear. The NBA’s Eastern Conference may be another matter, but the truth is the Knicks are better now, today — essentially trading in Obi Toppin’s unknown ceiling for DiVincenzo’s 40-percent shooting from 3 and winning pedigree — than they were yesterday.
It is the kind of transaction that allows the fun to momentarily overtake the frustrating, if you happen to be a fan — or a general manager — of the Knicks. Free agency does that. It’s intoxicating. You see names and dollars and the remarkable engine of NBA commerce hard at work.
You see the Nets regain their No. 1 target — Cam Johnson — and add a nice piece in Dennis Smith Jr. You see activity all across the league.
The news flies fast and furious and you’re gobbling all of it up — well, assuming you haven’t exceeded your “rate limit” on Twitter. And you take your swing, and in this case that means spreading the Wildcats flavor to the Knicks roster. You can feel good about that.
And then a blast of lightning bursts.
Like the news that Damian Lillard has demanded a trade from the Portland Trail Blazers.
Now, around here, we are conditioned to the drill, something that has happened regularly ever since the dawn of free player movement, maybe all the way back to the Knicks’ failed pursuit of George McGinniss and their non-pursuit of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar almost 40 years ago. Immediately we whir up the Possibility Machine and think: how would that work here? How could that work here? The years change — 1975, 1985, 2010, 2019 — and the names change — Jabbar, Kevin McHale, LeBron James, Kevin Durant.
But the temptation is always the same.
How would that work here?
How could that work here?
Spoiler alert: it almost never works here. The players almost never come here. Sometimes that’s their choice. Sometimes — like last year with Donovan Mitchell — it’s the team’s choice.
In this case, it’s probably a mutual choice.
Lillard seems to have his eyes fixed on Miami, which makes perfect sense because you could see Lillard teaming up with Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo and Erik Spoelstra and creating the kind of splendid basketball show that immediately rises to the top of the hit parade in the East. And given that the team Lillard would be joining — minus Max Strus and Gabe Vincent — just galloped to the Finals, it’s a marvelous plan indeed.
And one that has to make the other teams in the East — starting, of course, with the Knicks — awfully concerned.
This doesn’t mean the Knicks are forbidden from at least thinking about this, of course. And at least one of them has — Josh Hart tweeting out “Hey @Dame_Lillard” with an emoji of a raised arm.
Will Leon Rose?
Well, look: Lillard is certainly a far more enticing possibility than the one that shook much of Knicks nation to its core Thursday and Friday — James Harden. And Lillard, though 33 in a few weeks, is coming off his best year as a pro, though he was limited to 58 games after sitting out the last month.
That said?
He would be a fun addition.
But he isn’t a necessary one. It would give the Knicks an awfully small backcourt on defense, as electrifying as it might be on offense. And it would require a full or nearly full exodus of all the draft assets that Rose has carefully assembled, in addition to a few of the Knicks’ young players. That deal is coming at some point, has to be coming. Is Lillard the one to pull the trigger on?
That doesn’t seem likely.
And it’s hard to argue otherwise.