The New York Knicks failed massively once again in landing the top star they wanted and needed this summer, and unsurprisingly those within the NBA are baffled and also laughing at the latest blunder by New York’s favorite basketball team.
After a month of speculation over the Utah Jazz taking offers on three-time All-Star Donovan Mitchell, the team finally pulled the trigger on Thursday afternoon and traded their best player. However, the 25-year-old was not sent back home to play for the Knicks. The organization that was long rumored as the most likely landing spot and with the primary assets the Jazz coveted. No, Mitchell is headed to play for the Cleveland Cavaliers and join a very talented young core that includes All-Star Darius Garland and Evan Mobley.
Talks between the Knicks and Jazz fell apart on Monday when reports stated that New York was unwilling to acquiesce to Utah’s preference of at least three unprotected future draft picks and much more. Instead, the Knicks brass shifted gears to giving stud guard RJ Barrett the long-term extension they had hesitated to offer up for months.
Related: Cleveland Cavaliers trade for Donovan Mitchell in a blockbuster deal with Utah Jazz
In the end, despite cultivating the greatest compilation of future first-round draft picks in the NBA right now, the Knicks are heading into training camp next month with mostly the same team that missed the play-in tournament last season. They were always the favorite to get Mitchell until they got in their own way and weren’t anymore. Now they have nothing to show for all their draft capital efforts.
Opinion’s on New York Knicks’ latest failure: ‘They make me sick’
Unsurprisingly, the Knicks are once again the source of confusion and mockery around the NBA after again failing to land a coveted superstar that they wanted and desperately needed. On Thursday night, Bleacher Report NBA insider Eric Pincus was able to land various thoughts on New York’s latest failure that are, as expected, not good.
“They whiffed on a softball,” an NBA source told the outlet. “The Knicks thought they were bidding against themselves. The Cavaliers beg to differ.” One player agent was shocked that New York was unwilling to part with more draft picks in a Mitchell trade when they have so many to give up. “Who are they saving their picks for?” the player said. “They don’t really have the patience to build through the draft. Are they getting someone better than Donovan?”
Maybe the best hot take comes from the loudest mouth at ESPN, and one of the team’s most vocal fans in Stephen A. Smith. The native New Yorker and multi-sport analyst took to social media after the news and lamented another dark day in Knicks history. A team that makes him “sick.”
“I wanted Donovan Mitchell to New York. I shut my mouth. I didn’t say a word. Because I didn’t want to blow it, I didn’t want to get in the way. You got about seven or eight first-round picks. You RJ Barrett, you got Julius Randle, you got [Obi] Toppin, you got Immanuel Quickley and you still couldn’t get Donovan Mitchell. So once again we are gonna go into another season and the New York Knicks are devoid of a star. They’re somewhere other than in a New York Knicks uniform. They make me sick.”
Stephen A. Smith on Knicks’ Mitchell trade failure