New York Knicks are looking to trade their first-round picks
The New York Knicks had their best season in nearly 8 years this season and while they fell to the Hawks in the first-round of the playoffs, this season was a massive success for them! Tom Thibodeau earned Coach of the Year honors in his first season as Knicks’ head coach, they had one of the best defensive teams in the league all year long and Julius Randle emerged as the superstar on this team, being named an All-Star for the first-time in his career and being named this year’s recipient of the Most Improved Player award.
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Preparing for the 2021 NBA Draft, the Knicks own the rights to the 19th pick (their own pick) and Dallas’ 21st overall selection in the draft this year, stemming from the Kristaps Porzingis/Tim Hardaway Jr. trade with the Mavericks in 2019.
With the 19th and 21st picks in this year’s draft, the Knicks do have plenty of options on what they potentially want to do. They could keep both picks and bring in two talented rookies to their roster, they could trade one of the picks, or they could look to trade both of their picks in order to bring in more established talent.
Seeing as they have close to $60M in cap space this offseason to play around with, we are absolutely buying the talks that the Knicks are going to look to trade their first-round draft picks. They are surprisingly in a situation to win right now, which is why Leon Rose and Scott Perry will be super aggressive this offseason in their hunt for more talent.
Who knows what teams will be looking to move up around the Knicks draft picks and a trade could easily be worked out on draft night after all the evaluations of the prospects have been completed, but it should not be a shock at all to see New York trade one or even both of their first-round picks this year in order to bring in established, key players that can help them in their hunt to make a deep playoff run. This is certainly high on the list of believe-able NBA Draft rumors
Verdict: BUY
