It’s that time of the year again, the period when all the hottest names are off the NBA’s free agency market, when the only gossip that lingers is about the big stars who want trades.
The news cycle goes the same way annually. Around this stage last summer, the Donovan Mitchell saga was picking up. The New York Knicks were at the center of it. Today, others play similar leading roles. Damian Lillard is still a Portland Trail Blazer, but maybe he won’t be at the start of the season, but also maybe the Blazers won’t settle for a unworthy package from the Miami Heat so who the heck knows how this ends? James Harden is still a Philadelphia 76er and considering Daryl Morey takes magical eye drops that prevent him from blinking first, that saga may as well last until Harden’s beard reaches his ankles.
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And then there’s the other news out of Philly, the off-hand comments that reigning MVP Joel Embiid made last week, ones that once again bring the Knicks into the periphery of the conversation.
“I just want to win a championship — um, you know, whatever it takes,” Embiid said in an interview with UNINTERRUPTED CEO Maverick Carter that was recorded a week ago but didn’t begin to pop around the internet until earlier this week. “I don’t know where that’s going to be, whether it’s in Philly or anywhere else.”
So naturally, the basketball world streaked to its comfort zone: a sensationalist frenzy. After all this is how following the NBA works.
GO DEEPER
Amick: Why Embiid’s 'anywhere else' comments matter far less than the Sixers' next move
A great player says something that could mean anything, and the rest of us on the outside think 14 steps into the future.
OK, so if the Sixers end up having to trade Harden to, say, the LA Clippers, and Philadelphia doesn’t get much back, and Embiid gives it a go with this renovated squad, and the team slides from third place in the East this past season to the bottom part of the playoffs, and Embiid begins to think a championship isn’t going to happen in Philly, then could that “anywhere else” sentiment transform from throwaway phrasing to a league-altering trade?
But, of course, pontificating goes further than that.
And considering there is a team only 100 miles away that has been star hunting ever since the current administration took over and whose president is Embiid’s former agent, it’s only logical to think of that ever-patient team in Manhattan, the one that made a couple of small tweaks to its rotation this summer but otherwise kept a 47-win team intact.
Of course, we are all outrageous, nonsensical people. There is little use in overanalyzing one phrase in a July interview from a hype-competitive person who wants to win big but has never even made it past the second round. After all, it’s not like Embiid halted his quote with a suggestion that he could go “anywhere else” and then dropped the mic only to moonwalk off the stage.
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“I just want to have a chance to accomplish that,” Embiid continued. “I want to see what it feels like to win that first one and then think about that next one. It’s not easy, but it takes more than one or two, three guys. You’ve got to have good people around you, and myself, you know, every single day I work hard to be at that level so I can produce and make it happen.”
Embiid has told people close to him for years that he values the idea of a one-team legacy. There is a long way to go between vague comments about the mystical land of “anywhere else” and an official trade request.
But this is, however, why the Knicks have monitored the situation with Embiid in Philadelphia.
New York has played a balancing act ever since Leon Rose took over the front office in 2020. It has been built with the idea of trading for, not signing, a star, but it also hasn’t been trigger-happy. The Knicks went aggressively after Mitchell last summer, but clearly, they had a ceiling on what they were willing to offer. If they didn’t, Mitchell would be in his home state right now, not Ohio.
Other All-Stars have trickled in and out of the rumor mill over the years, including this summer. New York made contact with the Chicago Bulls about their shooting guard, Zach LaVine, but the asking price for the two-time All-Star was “giant,” as one league source told The Athletic, which is exactly why LaVine remains in Chicago. The Knicks and Bulls, according to league sources, never got close.
There are the Karl-Anthony Towns rumors that fling around, if only because they are easy. Towns is a CAA client and was once represented by Rose, himself, back when Rose ran CAA’s basketball division. We know the deal by now: the Knicks go after the CAA guys. They did it with Jalen Brunson and Isaiah Hartenstein and Josh Hart and when they drafted Obi Toppin. They extended Julius Randle. They targeted Mitchell. So people project every CAA client onto them.
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But it’s not like the Minnesota Timberwolves are trying to tear their team down. According to league sources who have talked business with them, the Wolves have set a sky-high price on Towns, too. And according to another league source, in spite of what the constant speculation may tell you, the Knicks have not expressed any interest in trading for Towns.
They are waiting. Patiently. For the right fit.
They know now that they already have one star on the roster in Brunson. Because of that, the organization has taken on an intuitive approach. The Knicks ask one question about any prominent player they consider acquiring: Does he fit well with Brunson? If the answer is no, then he’s not worth the massive return it’d take to acquire him. That’s why we haven’t heard a peep about the Knicks and Lillard, even though New York was a constant in Lillard hypotheticals years ago. If Lillard and CJ McCollum couldn’t make it work defensively, then he and Brunson could lead to bloodshed.
But an MVP in Philadelphia? A 29-year-old who has topped 30 points a game two years in a row? A rim protector capable of holding up an entire defense all by himself when he’s at full throttle? A pick-and-roll partner for Brunson or RJ Barrett or Immanuel Quickley who would be no short of a destroyer? A low-post dynamo who’s still so skilled away from the basket that he impersonates niche, two-hand pump fakes from Sam Young? (If you don’t know about Sam Young’s pump fake, you are missing out on the greatest double-handed deek in the sport.)
That’s someone who fits with Brunson. It’s someone who could fit with the Knicks. And he already has a tight relationship with Rose.
The Knicks have all of their own first-round picks to trade. They own four protected ones from other teams: the Dallas Mavericks, Washington Wizards, Milwaukee Bucks and Detroit Pistons. None of those selections can top out as elite, but they are worth … something. They have enticing young talent, such as Barrett, Quickley and Quentin Grimes. The Knicks could put together a trade package that includes up to four unprotected first-rounders, up to three first-round swaps and another four picks from other teams as well as a young up-and-comer or two. Evan Fournier provides an expiring salary, too.
Other teams could hypothetically top New York’s offer. The Brooklyn Nets, for example, could trade up to six unprotected first-round picks. But would a star whose priority is to win a championship prefer being the man on a restructuring squad or the final piece of a hopeful contender?
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It’s why the Knicks have been so patient. They’re not waiting only on Embiid. The plan is grander than that. They’re hoping for not just a star, but the right star. And if Embiid were ever to leave Philadelphia — whether it were before February’s trade deadline or next summer or before the deadline after that — he would fit the description.
(Top photo of Julius Randle and Joel Embiid: Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)
