- 2,559
- 2,619
He's skilled but super low bball IQ. Will consistently make dumb plays.
The Official NBA Season Thread: SFA Prevails
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by pmatic,
- Start date
- 2,559
- 2,619
We didn't trade OG just to allow Quickley to walk away in a year or two. He probably gets less than what OG would be getting in FA anyways.
- 22,141
- 16,394
M
- 49,783
- 51,151
He’s a RFA this Summer.
- 2,559
- 2,619
I'm sure they'll match. The only long term money tied up as of today is Barnes, Poeltl, Gradey and now RJ.
- 16,936
- 16,822
Draymond got a burner account too?
elpablo21
Supporter
- 106,222
- 195,345
elpablo21
Supporter
- 106,222
- 195,345
yobyellav
formerly cord15
- 12,902
- 9,785
Just saw RJ out. The the knickerbockers saw him as a piece in their future.
- 80,694
- 55,639
Hollinger is the absolute worst. Bruv sucks and appears to be a weirdo on top of it all
- 39,443
- 79,641
moe200069
Supporter
- 24,568
- 43,531
Washed’s decision isn’t too surprising. I was just at an event, talking football with a random raiders’ fan who told me he rescheduled his first wedding anniversary to watch raiders vs chiefs last year January.
- 420
- 1,906
- 24,811
- 21,602
OG Anunoby’s agent is the son of the Knicks president lol.
Moheezy
formerly mizzoe33
- 11,463
- 9,421
Raptors fans are thrilled with the return. This also means that Paskal may bring back an even better return.
Kings, Pacers, and Atlanta are teams to watch and I’d put Brooklyn and Golden State as sleepers.
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- 61,782
- 133,853
Don’t think ATL should be interested
- 80,694
- 55,639
With OG off the table, Philly?
Moheezy
formerly mizzoe33
- 11,463
- 9,421
Given the expected bidding war, other teams can easily top what Philly can offer.
Plus Philly should follow the Denver blueprint and add within the margins around Maxey and Embiid.
elpablo21
Supporter
- 106,222
- 195,345
And this why KD ain't got time for these o's
- 92,482
- 128,451
Breaking down OG Anunoby to the Knicks
Dec. 30: Anunoby to Knicks, Barrett and Quickley to Raptors
New York Knicks get:
F OG Anunoby
C Precious Achiuwa
G Malachi Flynn
Toronto Raptors get:
F RJ Barrett
G Immanuel Quickley
2024 second-round pick (via Detroit)
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.
Dec. 30: Anunoby to Knicks, Barrett and Quickley to Raptors
New York Knicks get:
F OG Anunoby
C Precious Achiuwa
G Malachi Flynn
Toronto Raptors get:
F RJ Barrett
G Immanuel Quickley
2024 second-round pick (via Detroit)
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.
Raptors-Knicks trade favors Toronto, but it made too much sense for either side to pass up
Well, that escalated … Quickley.
What we were told a week ago was a slow-moving trade market suddenly flung wide open on Saturday, as the Knicks and Raptors got trade season underway with a fairly major five-player deal with six weeks of shopping remaining between now and the NBA trade deadline.
In the end, the Knicks and Raptors needed each other so much that even a ridiculous lawsuit couldn’t stop them from cutting a deal. For both, the need was strong to make a particular type of deal centering on a poorly-fitting impending free agent, one that was neither an “all-in” splurge nor a sell-off for draft capital. It led to a good old-fashioned player-for-player trade that leaves both rosters in a better place.
The trade, which the teams confirmed on Saturday afternoon, will send RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and Detroit’s 2024 second-round pick to the Raptors in return for OG Anunoby, Precious Achiuwa and Malachi Flynn.
At the margins, it seems as if Toronto made out better from this than New York did, but both teams are in better shape now than they were 24 hours ago. Let me walk through the particulars first and then move back to the wide-angle view.
For starters, the common sense of this deal was overwhelming. Both Quickley and Anunoby are free agents this summer, and both would offer expensive duplication of skills already present on their rosters in the absence of a trade. For New York, paying Quickley plus-starter money makes little sense as long as Jalen Brunson is dropping 50-burgers. The positional overlap in small scoring guards is just too great. For Toronto, Anunoby heavily duplicated skillsets found in two better players of roughly the same size in Scottie Barnes and Pascal Siakam, while the Raps foundered with poor shooting and a limited guard position.
Quickley, then, allowed the Knicks to check other boxes. New York needed to upgrade its small forward position, get bigger in general and get another big guy for the rest of this season to alleviate the loss of Mitchell Robinson. They checked all three boxes in this deal, turning Barrett into the bigger and more defensively stout Anunoby, and adding Achiuwa as a rotation-caliber frontcourt reserve.
Toronto, meanwhile, needed a real guard and somebody, anybody, who could be genuinely threatening from beyond the 3-point arc. The Raptors also gained some salary certainty going forward for a roster laden with question marks. Indeed, one reason the Raptors were so inscrutable for rival teams was that neither a classic sell-off for draft picks nor a push all-in with their own picks were the right move for Toronto. What they needed was to wave a magic wand and turn Anunoby into a backcourt player. They just did it.
Before we go further, here’s the contract nitty-gritty on the five principals:
So why do I like this so much for Toronto? Basically, because I think Quickley is a bit of an undiscovered gem, a player who could potentially produce at an impact-starter level in the right team and – because of his restricted status – is likely to be retained on a favorable deal this offseason. Quickley is just 6-3, 190, he isn’t a pure point guard and he rarely gets all the way to the rim, so he’s not a clean fit everywhere. However, he is here. Playing off of Barnes is the perfect role for him. He’s a 39.5 percent 3-point shooter this year who bombs away at a high rate (11.1 attempts per 100), solving a massive need for the Raps.
Moreover, Quickley is 24, and he’s good. – a plus defender despite being vulnerable in some size matchups, a heady foul-drawer with a good floater game and a pretty solid on-ball guard for this archetype of player. He’s shot better than 50 percent on 2s this year and last, he’s money from the line and he punches above his weight on the glass. Anunoby might be the “name,” but Quickley scores six more points per 100 possessions, gets them more efficiently, and even nearly matches Anunoby on the boards.
Additionally, the Raptors walked away from this with another nice asset in the Detroit second-rounder, which is almost certain to be either the 31st or 32nd pick in the 2024 draft. Cynics will point out that this draft isn’t seen as very good, and that the last two times the Raps picked in this neighborhood, they ended up with Flynn and Christian Koloko. But at the very least, the Raps got a free shot at landing an inexpensive role player.
Contractually, Quickley’s deal offers some insurance against Siakam fleeing in the offseason, because Quickley’s low cap hold can allow the Raptors to backfill via cap space now. (The most interesting lingering question from this trade: Is free-agent-to-be Siakam available now? Or is it the opposite case and he’s about to sign an extension?)
More probably, the fact that Quickley’s next contract is likely to be on more reasonable terms than Anunoby’s will make the rest of Toronto’s roster construction question easier to answer. The team now projects to have plenty of maneuverability below the 2024-25 tax line, for instance, even if Quickley and Siakam both re-sign.
The cost, to an extent, was taking on Barrett’s deal. He can score and might be reimagined in Toronto as a sixth man for that purpose, but his shaky shooting limits spacing and, in year five, his statistical output has hardly budged across every category since his second season. His deal isn’t terrible and his age still offers the possibility of redemption, but with four years to run, it could fairly be considered to have more negative equity than positive at this point. Basically, he’s an midlevel exception-caliber player making double the MLE.
Losing Achiuwa hurts Toronto in the short term, leaving the Raps a body short in the frontcourt. Should anything happen to Jakob Poeltl, that could be a real problem. Although statistically he hasn’t graded out much above replacement level, Achiuwa teased at the ability to do more throughout his Toronto tenure. This season, in particular, he seemed to ditch some of the tunnel vision and discovered that he can pass to the other four players on the floor, and his shooting stroke has always looked better than his 31.4 percent career mark from 3 would imply. As noted above, his ability to play either center or forward solves the Knicks’ most nagging short-term depth issue.
While the long-term implications of this deal are the most important, in the short term, this deal likely will help right the ship for each team in the second half of the season. Toronto has enough talent to get into the Play-In, at the very least, and with a right-sized lineup, it should have an easier time gliding past the East’s limp competition for the 10th seed. New York, meanwhile, is in a dogfight for spots in the top six with Orlando, Miami and Cleveland. This deal makes it easier to outlast at least one of the others and avoid the Play-In, while mostly keeping the Knicks’ powder dry to pursue their elusive blockbuster.
Again, I like this better for Toronto because I like Quickley better than Anunoby and the margins mostly favor the Raptors, but it’s not like New York should sue over this. It just made heaps of sense for both franchises.
Well, that escalated … Quickley.
What we were told a week ago was a slow-moving trade market suddenly flung wide open on Saturday, as the Knicks and Raptors got trade season underway with a fairly major five-player deal with six weeks of shopping remaining between now and the NBA trade deadline.
In the end, the Knicks and Raptors needed each other so much that even a ridiculous lawsuit couldn’t stop them from cutting a deal. For both, the need was strong to make a particular type of deal centering on a poorly-fitting impending free agent, one that was neither an “all-in” splurge nor a sell-off for draft capital. It led to a good old-fashioned player-for-player trade that leaves both rosters in a better place.
The trade, which the teams confirmed on Saturday afternoon, will send RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and Detroit’s 2024 second-round pick to the Raptors in return for OG Anunoby, Precious Achiuwa and Malachi Flynn.
At the margins, it seems as if Toronto made out better from this than New York did, but both teams are in better shape now than they were 24 hours ago. Let me walk through the particulars first and then move back to the wide-angle view.
For starters, the common sense of this deal was overwhelming. Both Quickley and Anunoby are free agents this summer, and both would offer expensive duplication of skills already present on their rosters in the absence of a trade. For New York, paying Quickley plus-starter money makes little sense as long as Jalen Brunson is dropping 50-burgers. The positional overlap in small scoring guards is just too great. For Toronto, Anunoby heavily duplicated skillsets found in two better players of roughly the same size in Scottie Barnes and Pascal Siakam, while the Raps foundered with poor shooting and a limited guard position.
Quickley, then, allowed the Knicks to check other boxes. New York needed to upgrade its small forward position, get bigger in general and get another big guy for the rest of this season to alleviate the loss of Mitchell Robinson. They checked all three boxes in this deal, turning Barrett into the bigger and more defensively stout Anunoby, and adding Achiuwa as a rotation-caliber frontcourt reserve.
Toronto, meanwhile, needed a real guard and somebody, anybody, who could be genuinely threatening from beyond the 3-point arc. The Raptors also gained some salary certainty going forward for a roster laden with question marks. Indeed, one reason the Raptors were so inscrutable for rival teams was that neither a classic sell-off for draft picks nor a push all-in with their own picks were the right move for Toronto. What they needed was to wave a magic wand and turn Anunoby into a backcourt player. They just did it.
Before we go further, here’s the contract nitty-gritty on the five principals:
- Anunoby makes $18.6 million and can (and almost certainly will) opt out of his deal after the season and become an unrestricted free agent. An All-Defensive Team-caliber defender at either forward spot, he gives New York more size and, at age 26, presumably is part of the Knicks’ long-term plans. Also, given that Anunoby’s agent is the son of Knicks president Leon Rose – deepening the Knicks-CAA relationship – one presumes there is a general understanding of what salary might be appropriate to continue Anunoby’s tenure in New York.
- Quickley is on the final year of his rookie contract that pays $4.2 million and will have a cap hold of $12.5 this offseason as a restricted free agent, which may matter if the Raptors don’t re-sign Siakam. He is likely to start in the backcourt next to Scottie Barnes.
- Barrett is on the first year of a four-year extension that pays a total of $107 million, plus (extremely) unlikely incentives. The 23-year-old Canadian would likely take over Anunoby’s spot as Toronto’s starting small forward; he won’t be the lockdown defender that Anunoby was, but adds more shot creation off the dribble.
- Achiuwa is on the final year of a deal that pays him $4.4 million and will be a restricted free agent if the Knicks make a qualifying offer of $6.3 million.
- Flynn makes $3.9 million, is a free agent after the season, and had fallen out of Toronto’s rotation. He’s unlikely to play much for New York but does offer a third point guard. As with the other players in this deal, Flynn’s contract cannot be aggregated with others in another trade between now and the trade deadline.
- Finally, the Knicks had to waive DaQuan Jeffries to complete the deal.
- Toronto is now $1.7 million from the tax line and has an open roster spot. The Raptors could sign another player for the rest of the year and stay just below the tax threshold for the year. One would expect them to sign a 10-day contract next week when those become eligible, and hold off on a rest-of-season contract for anybody until after the trade deadline.
So why do I like this so much for Toronto? Basically, because I think Quickley is a bit of an undiscovered gem, a player who could potentially produce at an impact-starter level in the right team and – because of his restricted status – is likely to be retained on a favorable deal this offseason. Quickley is just 6-3, 190, he isn’t a pure point guard and he rarely gets all the way to the rim, so he’s not a clean fit everywhere. However, he is here. Playing off of Barnes is the perfect role for him. He’s a 39.5 percent 3-point shooter this year who bombs away at a high rate (11.1 attempts per 100), solving a massive need for the Raps.
Moreover, Quickley is 24, and he’s good. – a plus defender despite being vulnerable in some size matchups, a heady foul-drawer with a good floater game and a pretty solid on-ball guard for this archetype of player. He’s shot better than 50 percent on 2s this year and last, he’s money from the line and he punches above his weight on the glass. Anunoby might be the “name,” but Quickley scores six more points per 100 possessions, gets them more efficiently, and even nearly matches Anunoby on the boards.
Additionally, the Raptors walked away from this with another nice asset in the Detroit second-rounder, which is almost certain to be either the 31st or 32nd pick in the 2024 draft. Cynics will point out that this draft isn’t seen as very good, and that the last two times the Raps picked in this neighborhood, they ended up with Flynn and Christian Koloko. But at the very least, the Raps got a free shot at landing an inexpensive role player.
Contractually, Quickley’s deal offers some insurance against Siakam fleeing in the offseason, because Quickley’s low cap hold can allow the Raptors to backfill via cap space now. (The most interesting lingering question from this trade: Is free-agent-to-be Siakam available now? Or is it the opposite case and he’s about to sign an extension?)
More probably, the fact that Quickley’s next contract is likely to be on more reasonable terms than Anunoby’s will make the rest of Toronto’s roster construction question easier to answer. The team now projects to have plenty of maneuverability below the 2024-25 tax line, for instance, even if Quickley and Siakam both re-sign.
The cost, to an extent, was taking on Barrett’s deal. He can score and might be reimagined in Toronto as a sixth man for that purpose, but his shaky shooting limits spacing and, in year five, his statistical output has hardly budged across every category since his second season. His deal isn’t terrible and his age still offers the possibility of redemption, but with four years to run, it could fairly be considered to have more negative equity than positive at this point. Basically, he’s an midlevel exception-caliber player making double the MLE.
Losing Achiuwa hurts Toronto in the short term, leaving the Raps a body short in the frontcourt. Should anything happen to Jakob Poeltl, that could be a real problem. Although statistically he hasn’t graded out much above replacement level, Achiuwa teased at the ability to do more throughout his Toronto tenure. This season, in particular, he seemed to ditch some of the tunnel vision and discovered that he can pass to the other four players on the floor, and his shooting stroke has always looked better than his 31.4 percent career mark from 3 would imply. As noted above, his ability to play either center or forward solves the Knicks’ most nagging short-term depth issue.
While the long-term implications of this deal are the most important, in the short term, this deal likely will help right the ship for each team in the second half of the season. Toronto has enough talent to get into the Play-In, at the very least, and with a right-sized lineup, it should have an easier time gliding past the East’s limp competition for the 10th seed. New York, meanwhile, is in a dogfight for spots in the top six with Orlando, Miami and Cleveland. This deal makes it easier to outlast at least one of the others and avoid the Play-In, while mostly keeping the Knicks’ powder dry to pursue their elusive blockbuster.
Again, I like this better for Toronto because I like Quickley better than Anunoby and the margins mostly favor the Raptors, but it’s not like New York should sue over this. It just made heaps of sense for both franchises.
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Sacramento makes the most sense and he could make a difference there.
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Think Pacers make the most sense and realistic for Siakam.
Can sell high on Bruce Brown, with Toppin and filler.
Can sell high on Bruce Brown, with Toppin and filler.
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Trust me Atlanta is ready to wheel and deal right now. Nobody’s really off the table besides the young boy Jalen Johnson. We need big roster shake up. We been running with the different variations of the same roster for 4 years and it hasn’t given us much aside from the 2020 run.
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They’ll do it cuz they want to sell playoff tix, still a 1st round exit tho
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God please not the Pacers. That would be the most boring move you could possibly make
OKC should see what's good
OKC should see what's good
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