The Knicks Missed Out On Trading For Donovan Mitchell, Which Has Me Feeling A Mix Of Sad, Mad, And Oddly Okay With it
So I saw this tweet and was gutted. After months of dreaming of Donovan Mitchell as a Knick, it was all over in the blink of an after an 85 character tweet from Woj.
However then I saw this tweet from Shams outlining the deal and started to feel a little better.
From what I can gather, in order for the Knicks to match the Cavs package they would've had to give up some combination of RJ, Obi, Grimes, Quickley, the rights to the Go New York Go song, Patrick Ewing's retired number, Billy Joel's residency at The Garden, and the New York Rangers. Leon didn't want to give all that up for Donovan Mitchell, so Donovan Mitchell isn't a Knick and won't be in town for the Mets World Series parade this November.
Alright, I'm starting to get sad again.
I know there are going to be a bunch of Knicks fans that are angry right now because they have lived in whatever is worse than Basketball Hell for almost this entire century and that's fine. But I think things are going to be alright, which feels like famous last words for a Knicks fan to say. The Knicks still have a talented young core, 9 first round picks in the next 5 years, and almost definitely will not have to deal with Danny Ainge looking to bleed every asset out of them when the next disgruntled NBA star asks out (which will probably happen by the time I hit Publish on this blog). Plus you can't trade RJ after seeing how he plays with braids.
For as much as I would love Donovan Mitchell to be here, and trust me I was very excited to have the best scorer on the Knicks since #STAYME7O was here, all I heard was how bad of a fit he would be defensively with Jalen Brunson in the backcourt and how his numbers could be a bit hollow. Granted the people that said that will probably do a complete 180 since dunking on the Knicks since it's LOLKnicks forever. But it's not like the Knicks missed out on Kevin Durant. That happened a few summers ago. Now I'm starting to get angry again, no matter how much of a shitshow the Nets have been since him and Kyrie came to town.
Usually I go to my guy Tommy Beer, who is a great Twitter follow for Knicks fans, for some Tommy Stats telling me why a guy the Knicks have is awesome. However I asked him the opposite today for Donovan Mitchell and he delivered.
I guess in the end, I'm happy this is all over and the Knicks didn't grab their ankles while allowing Trader Danny to take whatever he wanted. It sounded crazy when Woj said it, but it appears that RJ was on the table and the Knicks chose him (along with a buttload of other stuff) over Mitchell. At least that's what this statement being released as the smoke from the Woj Bomb was still smoldering in the distance.
Don't get me wrong though. I'm happy it's over but I am very annoyed that we had to wait months for this entire charade to wrap up and I'll never forgive those goddamn Utah radio hosts for making me write almost an entire blog so I was ready for the deal to go down.
On the bright side, at least the Knicks have the assets to trade for a star and have a front office that will not allow another franchise to completely plunder them for one. The Cavs were in a much better place to make this trade and hopefully the Knicks are there when they finally land their next big star.
I can say when, right Leon? RIGHT?!?
Everything will be fine. I think. As long as Dolan doesn't put his greasy paws on this team. At least the Knicks have a normal sized table for their players to sign their contracts on now.
UPDATE: Yup I'm fine with passing on this.