Championship contenders making trades with one another is rare, and you don’t have to look too far back to understand why.
Just a year ago this week, the Milwaukee Bucks made a blockbuster trade with the Portland Trail Blazers to acquire Damian Lillard , but that inadvertently led to Jrue Holiday landing with the Boston Celtics . Holiday proved to be the vital last piece for Boston’s quest to build a championship team within Milwaukee’s own conference.
But the New York Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves each had a unique set of problems, and they fell into being each other’s best solution. It created an awkward and unexpected alliance that led to two contenders swapping two former All-NBA players — Karl-Anthony Towns and Julius Randle — just before the start of training camp, as spicy a move as you’re ever going to see in September.
The Knicks’ problems started at center, specifically their lack of a starting one. New York has built a wall around the extent of starter Mitchell Robinson’s foot problems — the Leon Rose administration is good at keeping secrets, which helped the Knicks not lose leverage in these very trade talks. But internally New York is planning for Robinson to be out at least three more months. Will it be more? Hopefully not, but no one knows for sure. Isaiah Hartenstein , who served as Robinson’s backup the past two seasons and started 49 games in his absence last season, already departed in free agency, leaving New York dangerously thin — and short — up front.