The New York Knicks’ decision to fire president Steve Mills earlier in the week made one thing clear. This organization is going to be a wild card ahead of Thursday’s NBA trade deadline.
Under Mills’ leadership, New York was pushing back against trading veteran forward Marcus Morris. It also had not dipped into the trade market for Golden State Warriors All-Star D’Angelo Russell.
That’s now changed. According to Steve Popper of Newsday, New York will deal Morris ahead of the deadline. It is also still in the mix for Russell.
This is an extremely interesting situation. Golden State pulled out of multi-team trade talks with the Timberwolves when its asking price for Russell was not met.
Minnesota ultimately took part in a four-team trade that’s the biggest we’ve seen around the Association in two decades. It is seemingly out of the sweepstakes for Russell after targeting him big time over the past several weeks.
As it relates to the Knicks, they are out here looking for that star player to help excite an angry fan base. Whether Russell would be the answer remains to be seen.
We do know that Morris and Russell would likely be moved in separate trades or part of a larger deal involving more teams. The market for Morris is huge. But this does not include a Warriors squad that lacks interest in a potential rental being the centerpiece of a trade.
It will certainly be interesting to see what comes of this over the next 24 hours or so.