The Knicks don’t just talk a good game here, because they have been better at that for most of this century than playing the kind of game they used to. The Knicks make this trade for Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks — more for Bojan than Burks — and become a serious team again in an Eastern Conference that they clearly see as being more wide open than the wild, wild west.
They became a much better basketball team when they signed Jalen Brunson, the best point guard they’ve had since Clyde, as a free agent away from the Mavericks. They got even better when they lengthened their wings and really lengthened their team by trading for OG Anunoby (who will miss at least the next 3 weeks after undergoing elbow surgery). Everybody can see how they’ve looked and how they’ve played since that trade, even after Julius Randle and Anunoby got hurt.
But now Leon Rose makes this kind of move at the trade deadline for the kind of player, Bogdanovic, who is exactly this in a season when he’s averaging 20 a game, even at the age of 34:
Someone who can be the third-best player on a contending team.
It is what the Knicks are when they are whole again: They are a contender again. Rose is signaling to the rest of the league that he believes he has the horses to make a run. His team was sitting right there at No. 4 in their conference when he made this trade, two games behind the Cavaliers in the loss column, whom they beat in the playoffs last year, and tied with the Bucks, and who knows what the Bucks are going to look like in the spring.
At the same time the Knicks are six games behind the Celtics, which means six behind the best record in the league. Even with this trade, the Knicks still don’t have the horses the Celtics do, especially if old friend Kristaps Porzingis remains healthy. But when was the last time the Knicks looked at first place in the Eastern Conference and didn’t feel as if it were as distant a sight from 33rd St. as Yankee Stadium?
The Knicks have made big moves before. They made one for Carmelo Anthony once, another February, 13 years ago. But they were a 28-26 team when they made that trade with the Nuggets, and even though they would win 54 games a couple of years later. No one thought they would make a run in that 2010-11 season.
No. This move at least has a chance to be as big as the one for Latrell Sprewell turned out to be 25 years ago, one that changed everything for the Knicks of 1998-99 despite the fact that they would end up finishing No. 8 in the East. No one knew when the trade happened, but Sprewell becoming a Knick was the beginning of one of the most exciting rides the Knicks have ever had, one that included knocking off the No. 1 Heat and going all the way to the NBA Finals.
Do Bojan and Burks mean that is going to happen again?
It would be silly to game this out that far, with this much season left, and not knowing when Randle is going to be back, because no one is sure about that, whatever smiley-faces the Knicks are putting on his recovery. But Heat Culture isn’t doing much good for Pat Riley so far this season. Joel Embiid just had knee surgery, and will be evaluated in a month, and then we’ll see where he is and where the Sixers are.
You know where the Knicks are going to be in a couple of weeks, though? Playing the Celtics at the Garden, at which point the Knicks that have been reimagined since the start of the season get a chance to see how they match up against the best team in the league. For that one night, and maybe more nights like it the rest of the way, Knicks vs. Celtics might feel like a fair fight again.
The Knicks aren’t the only team that gets better at the deadline, of course. The Sixers make it clear that they’re not throwing in the towel by making a trade for Buddy Hield. Still: In the early afternoon of the trade deadline, the biggest noise came from the Knicks.
There was a feeling around the league that the Sixers might try to get Bogdanovic away from the Pistons. The Knicks got him instead. As their sport moves up on what always feels like its traditional halfway point, despite the number of games that have been played, the Knicks officially make their fans believe that their own season is just starting.
No one knew back in February of ’99 where the combination of Sprewell and Allan Houston in the same backcourt would take the Knicks. Everybody sure found out in the spring, as the Knicks were on their way back to the Finals for the first time since ‘94. Here’s what Knicks GM Ernie Grunfeld said at the time of the Sprewell trade:
“Sprewell is an explosive offensive player. He’s a fierce competitor. I think he’s committed to winning.”
Bogdanovich isn’t the explosive player Sprewell was. Few the Knicks have ever had played with that kind of fire. But Sprewell had averaged 21 points a game in the five full seasons before the Knicks got him. Bogdanovich has averaged 18. He’s one of those guys whose real position is basketball player.
The Knicks took their own position on Thursday: They don’t want to be stuck in the middle any longer. Seriously.
