OG Trade to the Knicks

Apparently the draft pick is just Detroit’s 2nd rounder next spring. So 31st or 32nd.

I liked this instant analysis:

I haven't watched Quickley enough to have any sort of opinion. Lots of fans seem to have a high opinion of his potential. I will decide once I've seen him in action.

Barrett is no world beater but he can play a bit so the depth has been improved a little. Didn't solve overabundance of forwards though.

I'd like to see some moved for draft capital to ease the minutes crunch. Get what you can for any three of Boucher, Mcdaniels, Porter, Young, Achiuwa as long as it isn't more forwards.

Edit
Now I'm hearing that Achiuwa and Flynn are included in the deal. No great loss IMO, though we lost a backup centre.

Going to miss OG, but something had to be done given the $$ and this offer has some sanity to it. More moves could likely be coming.

Edit: Looks like only a second round pick ... I thought we might get at least one FRP even if deferred.

Edit 2: Just saw haisan's post. Detroit 2nd round is not as bad as getting the Knicks one, it pretty much the same as a low first rounder without the guarantee.

What will make this trade a success is what type of guard Quickley develops into. Id prefer a PG but I'll accept a SG that can make plays. Not yet sure what he is.

www.sportsnet.ca/590/raptors-show/

They show a lot of love for this trade and for IQ as a great fit for the team. Largely leave Siakam play now open where they might want to keep and pay him now. They now have a few months until the trade deadline to evaluate the new team before deciding that but money wise it might be possible.

This looks like an even trade for both sides but it would be pretty hilarious if someday we were able to look back on this as another fleecing like the Bargnani trade. Obviously this is just completely disconnected from reality but I like the narrative that Masai is some sort of puppet master in the shadows who knows all of the Knick's front office secrets and weaknesses.

www.theringer.com/nba/2023/12/30/24020020/og-anunoby-trade-new-york-knicks-toronto-raptors

"For the Raptors

Toronto’s return for Anunoby points to Masai Ujiri’s preference for players rather than picks amid the franchise’s transition. Other teams reportedly offered as many as three future first-round selections for Anunoby at last season’s deadline, but the Raptors president held on to Anunoby for an extra year and netted two rotation players and a pick instead.



Ending up with just one second-round pick instead of three firsts might seem like a disastrous outcome in a pick-happy league. But in a vacuum, that decision actually works out to Toronto’s advantage. Quickley and Barrett are both better than the average first-rounder, and both players are young—Barrett’s 23 years old, Quickley’s 24—and a good match for 22-year-old Scottie Barnes’s timeline. Meanwhile, while Toronto technically didn’t end up with any future first-round selections in the trade, it came close, as the pick it acquired is Detroit’s 2024 second-rounder—which the Knicks held until Saturday—which will likely end up at no. 31 overall.



The drawback of that trade-off is mostly a matter of cost. Instead of eventually landing players on rookie salaries, the Raptors will have to pay much more for Barrett, who’s signed for three years and $83 million after this season, and Quickley, who will reach restricted free agency this summer. Those are potentially manageable deals, but if the Raptors re-sign impending free agent Pascal Siakam and extend Barnes in a year, they could find themselves cash-strapped and still stuck in the middle of the standings.



Ujiri’s hope is that Quickley and Barrett will help Toronto get unstuck. At the very least, he recognized that the positional overlap between Anunoby, Siakam, and Barnes was untenable and that an offense that faltered in the half court even when Fred VanVleet was in town was fully lost without a dynamic point guard. This season, the Raptors rank 18th in offensive rating, 16th on defense, and 22nd in net; they had no identity and no obvious strengths, aside from Barnes’s surge in his third season.



A starting lineup with Quickley, Barrett, Barnes, Siakam, and Jakob Poeltl might still lack sufficient spacing, as Poeltl is a non-shooter, and both Barrett and Siakam have slumped from distance. But it also carries much more upside and intrigue.



In particular, the Raptors should relish seeing whether Quickley can make a leap as a lead ball handler. The energetic guard has long been an advanced stats darling, and he’s an efficient scorer who is still improving. A mystifying decline in his minutes this season masked significant strides, including a jump from 18.6 to 22.5 points per 36 minutes. Could Quickley follow in Tyrese Maxey’s footsteps, given a similar increase in opportunity? He’s not on Maxey’s level as a playmaker, but that same sort of path is within reach.



Barrett also offers tantalizing potential, even if the no. 3 pick has frequently frustrated with his decision-making and inefficient scoring. The big extension he signed in September 2022 was more of a speculative bet on Barrett’s future than a confident assessment of his NBA career to date; Barrett has never, in any season of his career, rated as even an average player by player efficiency rating or box plus-minus.



Perhaps a change of scenery—back home, to Toronto!—will unlock the young wing’s upside. Barrett and his new team now both have the opportunity to embrace a new direction."

I agree, picks are just "hope" and typically late first (even mid firsts) turn out to be quite underwhelming. I like having 2 young guys who are already proven in the NBA than just hope. Especially if we're thinking of a "retool" rather than rebuild.

Also, hows Detroit doing with their 1sts? ..

The Knicks fanbase found RJ Barrett to be a frustrating af player to watch and statistically, he has been a net negative outside of a single season. He's never had a TS% at league average or better. He is kind of Rudy Gay with a better attitude and non-absurd usage, hence the very real potential him become actually efficient in a new situation. He, as he is now, with complete stagnation is far more likely to be a better outcome as a #3 pick (!) then all the mid to late first rounders offered to the Raptors. In a weird way, it is catching their own hubris - FVVs & Siakams do not just grow on trees to be found in the shadows.

Or, Boucher was a GREAT find. But at the end of the day, he is still a wildcard that cannot be reliably counted on, as most bench players ultimately are. Would a handful of mid to late picks result in a better player than him, who was undrafted, let alone Barrett or IQ? And, how long would it take for them to even be playable? And then there are still years for all of them to be conveyed. We don't have to look far to see our own lottery pick, Gradey Dick struggling to make any sort of impact at the next level:


I've been going to the gym for like a decade. I've deadlifted more than 600lb and benched 407lb last year. I'm just some random dude. Short of basically training like an anime character - which still wouldn't work because he'd need to recover enough to play, a significant and meaningful improvement in conditioning in two weeks at the professional level is... impossible. Some prospects completely neglect the gym before they get drafted, that isn't surprising. But wtf was happening this whole time?

Even if he pans out as a Gordon Hayward level player, that'll still take awhile. Let's say that he could even shoot 38% from 3 right now. He'd still get completely torched on defense, right? Toronto can still bet on their player development...on players with actual talent, rather than trying to teach Precious not to score on his own basket and hugging the everloving hell out of Flynn. Distressed assets and catching players before they breakout is the combo.

With some semblance of roster balance Siakam should continue play VERY well, and rehab his value. But keeping him long-term is still untenable with the cap considerations.

It took a long ass time, and everyone's cynicism and worry was warranted. But it was a good trade that has A+ potential and I'm sure an engaged OG will make the Knicks happy; prospects that have already proven themselves are better than non-lotto picks.