{"id":124256,"date":"2025-02-17T16:39:31","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T21:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=124256"},"modified":"2025-02-17T16:39:58","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T21:39:58","slug":"knicks-dodged-major-joel-embiid-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/17\/knicks-dodged-major-joel-embiid-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks Dodged Major Joel Embiid Trade Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Knicks entered the 2025 All-Star break in better spirits than they have in decades. They’re sitting at 36-18, comfortably in the Eastern Conference’s third seed after two-thirds of the season. Jalen Brunson<\/a> and Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a> represented the franchise as All-Star starters. It is the first time New York had two All-Star starters since 1975, marking the incredible transformation<\/a> for the organization. New York is a consensus top-five team in the league and a legitimate title threat in 2025. None of these things seemed possible<\/a> just a few short years ago. In fact, none of it would be possible if they had made one fateful move back in 2023.<\/p>\n

Knicks Dodged Major Joel Embiid Trade Failure<\/h2>\n

In October of 2023, days before the 2023-24 season kicked off, the Knicks reportedly made an offer<\/a> of “three key players and two or three first-round picks” in exchange for the MVP center, according to SNY’s Ian Begley. Philadelphia was said to have laughed upon receiving the deal, unmoved by the proposal for their franchise cornerstone. The Knicks had been connected to Joel Embiid<\/a> in trade rumors for years due to his concerns about the 76ers roster. Add in his constant injury struggles, and it was feasible that Philadelphia would at least consider moving on.<\/p>\n

76ers Declining NY’s Offer Saved Their Franchise<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It is unclear exactly who the “three key players” would’ve been, but any deal involving Embiid likely would’ve required some combination of RJ Barrett<\/a>, Julius Randle<\/a>, Immanuel Quickley<\/a>, Quentin Grimes<\/a>, and Mitchell Robinson<\/a>. It actually is somewhat unimportant which players would have ended up in Philly, as building around Embiid and his endless injury saga would have hamstrung the Knicks for years to come. Just look at the situation the 76ers are currently in. Despite an extremely talented roster, they’re stuck in no-man’s land because their $193 million superstar<\/a> rarely plays. There’s no way to construct a team around an expensive player who’s unavailable, regardless of how special he is. (Signing a 34-year-old Paul George<\/a> to a max contract didn’t help).<\/p>\n

New York Wouldn’t Be the Contender They Are Today<\/h3>\n

With that said, let’s just run through the assets the Knicks saved by failing to acquire Embiid, and what those assets earned them. As for the first-round picks, New York certainly doesn’t acquire Mikal Bridges<\/a> last summer without them. The players are more interesting to examine<\/a>. Barrett and Quickley were packaged for OG Anunoby<\/a> and Precious Achiuwa<\/a>, one of the most influential trades in Knicks history. That deal set New York on a contending path before anyone thought possible.<\/p>\n

Randle was used as half of the return to bring in All-Star starter Karl-Anthony Towns in a move that completed perhaps the Knicks’ best starting five ever (or at least in recent memory). Grimes was one of the few mistakes made by Leon Rose, who traded him in a deal for Bojan Bogdanovic<\/a> and Alec Burks<\/a> at the 2024 deadline. It’s hard to blame Rose for this, as the Knicks needed depth, and Grimes was both injured and playing poorly. Unfortunately, the Houston product has proven to be a stellar role player since departing.<\/p>\n

Lastly, Robinson is slated to be the final piece for New York’s playoff run in 2025. He still holds an immense amount of trade value if the Knicks decide to move on. For now, he’s expected to help fix Tom Thibodeau’s defensive woes down the stretch. If Philadelphia pulled the trigger on Rose’s trade offer in late 2023, there’s simply no way New York would be in this position. They would likely be without Anunoby, Bridges, and Towns, as well as several other assets.<\/p>\n

Knicks Would be in Salary Cap Purgatory\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Joel Embiid’s three-year extension doesn’t kick in until the 2026-27 season<\/a>, meaning the 76ers owe him guaranteed money until the 2028-29 campaign, which will end with him at 35 years old. The reality is that big men with lower-body injuries never age well, and Philadelphia is stuck with an expensive, unmovable asset until the end of the decade. This isn’t a critique of Daryl Morey and the Sixers\u2019 front office; they likely had to re-sign Embiid. It’s simply to say that the Knicks dodged a major bullet. Fans should be thanking their lucky stars that Philly didn’t like their offer back in 2023. That sequence of events likely saved the next decade of Knicks basketball.<\/p>\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Kyle Ross-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Knicks entered the 2025 All-Star break in better spirits than they have in decades. They’re sitting at 36-18, comfortably in the Eastern Conference’s third seed after two-thirds of the season. Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns represented the franchise as All-Star starters. It is the first time New York had two All-Star starters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5412,"featured_media":124285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,12,13,4721],"tags":[1417,267,213,1484,1082],"class_list":["post-124256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-knicks","category-76ers","category-trade-rumors","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-joel-embiid","tag-karl-anthony-towns","tag-mikal-bridges","tag-og-anunoby"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5412"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124256"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124287,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124256\/revisions\/124287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}