was very interested in the trade grades for this one:
New York Knicks: A-
This is an interesting trade for many reasons, not least the Knicks playing against their history by prioritizing a role player who's effective at both ends of the court over bigger names potentially available for trade.
Too often throughout New York's history of underperforming its market, the Knicks have gone after All-Stars just as they're about to hit the decline phase of their career, from Bob McAdoo to Amar'e Stoudemire. Having peaked at 17.1 PPG, Anunoby is both not that kind of star and, at age 26, just reaching his NBA peak.
Anunoby gives the Knicks the ace perimeter defender they've lacked in the Tom Thibodeau era. An All-Defensive second team pick a year ago, Anunoby was frankly still probably underrated at that end of the court after leading the league in steals per game. I had him on my first team.
Offensively, New York is giving up a lot of shot creation in this deal. Barrett (27%) and Quickley (24%) were third and fourth on the team in usage, respectively, behind leading scorers Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle. Only once in his career has Anunoby's usage rate been higher than league average (20%), and it's down a bit to 18% this season as Toronto has shifted more of its offense to ascending star Scottie Barnes.
In terms of the starting lineup, that's surely not a bad thing. Barrett has never scored with anything approaching league-average efficiency. This season's .536 true shooting percentage, a career high, still ranks 52nd of the 57 NBA regulars who have a usage rate of 25% or higher this season. A 34% career 3-point shooter (33% this season), Barrett did little to space the court for Brunson and Randle. Opponents will have to give more respect to Anunoby, who's at 37.4% this season and 37.5% for his career.
The real question is how this trade affects the Knicks' strong bench lineups. For the third consecutive year, Quickley has the best on-court net rating among New York full-season regulars, per NBA Advanced Stats. (And, last year, when Quickley was bested by trade deadline pickup Josh Hart, Hart too was part of the Knicks' second unit.)
To some degree, that says less about Quickley vis-à-vis New York's starters -- particularly Brunson -- and more about how the Knicks were able to beat up on weaker opposing benches. To maintain that same success, Thibodeau will probably have to change his approach on staggering the minutes of Brunson and Randle to mix them in with the reserves.
Brunson and Randle have played 986 minutes together, per NBA Advanced Stats, accounting for about 90% of their total playing time this season. For the most part, they've played separately only due to foul trouble. With two of New York's other best shot creators from the second unit promoted to the starting five (Donte DiVincenzo and Isaiah Hartenstein, the latter due to Mitchell Robinson's injury) and Quickley gone, the Knicks would be wise to keep one of their leading scorers on the court at all times.
It would be a nice bonus if New York got significant contributions from either Achiuwa or Flynn, making them more than throw-ins to this trade. There's an opportunity for Achiuwa to play at center with the Knicks losing both Robinson for the long-term and backup Jericho Sims (ankle sprain) in the short term, which has left New York down to Thibodeau security blanket Taj Gibson behind Hartenstein. New York could also use Achiuwa as a power forward in bigger lineups that shift Hart to his natural position on the wing.
Flynn was only adequate as Toronto's backup point guard this season after Fred VanVleet's departure. A plus shooter in college, he's never hit better than league average from the NBA line, limiting his value as an undersized defender. Similar players have thrived at times in Thibodeau's pick-and-roll-heavy offense, but the Knicks' coach may well prefer to use better defender Miles McBride as Quickley's replacement at point guard.
Just how well Thibodeau can prop up second units without Quickley will determine how much upgrading the starting lineup with Anunoby helps New York this season. A small upgrade could make a big impact. Having gone 5-5 since Robinson's injury, the Knicks have dropped a half-game back of the Cleveland Cavaliers for the last guaranteed playoff spot in the East.
At the same time, New York is just two games back of the fourth seed and home-court advantage in the first round. Although a deeper playoff run than last year's loss to the Miami Heat in the conference semifinals appears unlikely, the Knicks have the ability to win a playoff series for a second straight season, something they haven't done since the year 2000.
The best part of this deal for New York is the way it maintains future flexibility. The Knicks didn't dip into their stockpile of additional first-round picks, giving up only the Detroit second-round pick (likely to be Nos. 31-33) they nabbed in a draft-night trade down that landed Quentin Grimes as well. Notably, New York didn't have to give up the contract of Evan Fournier, maintaining the possibility of using him as expiring salary in a trade through next season (if the Knicks exercise their team option).
Given those factors, New York hasn't exactly punted on adding a star down the road by making this trade. Assuming the Knicks can sign Anunoby to a contract extension -- completing this trade Saturday would make him eligible for a four-year deal on June 30, the last day extensions are possible, ESPN's Bobby Marks notes -- or re-sign him as an unrestricted free agent, he will likely be more attractive to other teams as the centerpiece of a return than Barrett.
As a result, I think this was a deal New York couldn't pass on. The Knicks will surely miss Quickley, but his trade value was at its highest leading up to this year's trade deadline. Having failed to agree to a contract extension before the October deadline for players in the last season of their rookie contracts, Quickley will command a massive raise on his current bargain $4.2 million salary as a restricted free agent next summer.
If they can replace Quickley's production, it's possible New York could improve both the rest of the season and in terms of trade flexibility with this deal, which would make it an enormous win.
Toronto Raptors: C
I'd love to give the Raptors' front office truth serum and see how they rank the two players and pick they received in this deal in terms of importance. For most observers, Barrett will be the key part of what Toronto is getting back.
It's a homecoming for Barrett, a native of the GTA and the No. 3 overall pick in 2019 behind All-Stars Zion Williamson and Ja Morant. Though the book is not closed on Barrett's development at age 23, a similar outcome seems unlikely. Barrett's scoring average has declined each of the last three seasons and part of the benefit for the Knicks making this deal now might be moving before his trade value slips.
The expectation when Barrett was drafted was that he would excel at creating his own shot. That's never proven the case. Based on analysis of shooting data from NBA Advanced Stats, Barrett peaked at a 46% effective field-goal percentage last season on shots with more than two seconds of touch time, which typically represent self-created shots. That was still nowhere close to the league average of 50% on these shots.
Over time, Barrett has decreased the rate of his shots that are self-created from 62% in 2021-22, prior to Brunson's arrival in New York, to 53% this season. But that hasn't made him any more efficient because, aside from fluky 40% 3-point shooting in 2020-21, Barrett has been below average beyond the arc. It's possible Barrett can improve in this regard, with fellow Canadian Andrew Wiggins' development into an All-Star with the Golden State Warriors as a template. With each passing year, however, the odds of Barrett becoming a star decrease.
I think Quickley has the best chance of making this a positive trade for the Raptors. Because he's exclusively come off the bench after starting 21 games last season, Quickley's minutes per game are down to 24.0 from the 28.9 he averaged as the runner-up in Sixth Man Award voting in 2022-23. Yet Quickley is scoring the same number of PPG (15.0 vs. 14.9), which means his per-minute scoring is up dramatically to 22.5 per 36 minutes -- the same as Barett, with more playmaking and better efficiency.
The worst true shooting percentage of Quickley's four-year career (.543) was better than Barrett's best (.536). He's up to .598 this season thanks to career-best 39.5% accuracy beyond the arc. That shooting makes Quickley an intriguing fit with Barnes, capable of providing him more floor spacing than current Toronto starting point guard Dennis Schroder. Given how much both are playing, we'll surely also see some of Schroder and Quickley together in the Raptors backcourt.
With Toronto mired out of the play-in at 12-19, moving Anunoby before the deadline was undoubtedly the right decision ahead of his unrestricted free agency. The lingering question is how much the Raptors' desire to compete now motivated making a deal built primarily on young players rather than picks -- or whether pick-heavy offers were no longer available for Anunoby in the last season of his contract.
Although not landing a single first-round pick in this trade is surely a disappointment for Toronto fans dreaming of a draft bounty, the Pistons' second-rounder has plenty of value in its own right as one of the top picks in the round and possibly No. 31 overall.
It's possible the Raptors believe they can be more competitive with better depth, and while that's not unreasonable given Toronto's point differential (minus-1.3) has been far better than a 12-19 record that's tied for 11th in the East, that shouldn't be the goal. Instead, the Raptors would be wise to continue tearing off the band-aid by trading All-Star forward Pascal Siakam, also an unrestricted free agent at season's end.
Given the top-6 protected pick Toronto owes the San Antonio Spurs from the Jakob Poeltl trade, the best course would be losing enough games to have a reasonable chance of keeping their pick. The Raptors would need to have one of the league's two worst records to assure that outcome, but they would have better than 50-50 odds if they finish in the bottom five.
As a result, trading Anunoby should only be the first step toward Toronto remaking its roster to build around Barnes.
― call all destroyer, Saturday, 30 December 2023 20:54 (two years ago)