The Knicks’ season continues to be a roller coaster — right now, it’s riding high on a five-game win streak thanks to a suddenly surging defense sparked by Quentin Grimes and Miles McBride.
But the same holes in the tracks — poor shooting and a roster that doesn’t quite fit together — still lurk around every corner. The Knicks are a third of the way through the season, are two games above .500 and sixth in the East, yet are also only 2 1/2 games from 11th and out of the playoff picture.
Thursday marked the first day that most veteran free agents can be traded and that begs the question: What will team president Leon Rose & Co. do to get Jalen Brunson the help he needs to turn this team into one that can make the most out of its potential?
“They’re in no-man’s land,” one veteran agent told The Post. “It seems like they’re in neutral.
“The last 15-20 years they’ve been stuck in this purgatory of they’re not [bad enough to have] a top-three pick, but clearly are not one move away from making a deep run. How do you get out of that middle class of the league? It’s hard to get a feel where they’re at in their trajectory.”
One step in that direction was landing Brunson on a four-year, $104 million contract this offseason. A backup for the Mavericks who had a star-like run in the postseason, Brunson has shown immediate returns for a Knicks team that was in desperate need of a floor leader.
“A word people use in the NBA is organized. You have to get people organized,” a rival assistant told The Post. “There are things you’re trying to get accomplished every possession and the decision making needs to be high level. [Brunson] made himself that guy next to [Luka Doncic in Dallas], who had the ball more than anyone.
“Jalen’s got a ceiling, but he’s a good fit long-term, especially if they get more around him.”
The Knicks have players who are expendable and reportedly on the trade block, including Evan Fournier, Cam Reddish and Immanuel Quickley. Yahoo Sports described them as one of the “more active” teams in early trade talks, though there is no obvious path at the moment to landing an established star.
HoopsHype reported the Knicks had talked to the Lakers about moving Fournier for Patrick Beverley and Kendrick Nunn. Doing so would unburden the Knicks of the $18 million owed him this year and $18.9 million next, but they’re not necessarily interested in also attaching draft capital as part of the deal just for the sake of moving off Fournier’s contract even as he rides the bench.
Reddish has also been mentioned as a possibility for the Lakers, Heat and Bucks, according to SNY.
The Knicks are also one of the suitors for Kyle Kuzma, according to Bleacher Report. The Wizards forward is having a breakout year with a career-high 21.4 points on 46.2 percent shooting to go with 7.5 rebounds and 3.6 assists. But to land him would likely mean sending Obi Toppin, who is currently injured, Immanuel Quickley and draft compensation back (the Knicks own the Wizards’ 2023 protected first-round pick). It’s also unlikely, according to a source, that the Wizards would blow up their roster after Bradley Beal inked a five-year $251 million supermax deal in the offseason; unloading Kuzma would be considered a big step in that direction.
“There are a lot of buyers and not a lot of sellers right now,” former Nets assistant GM and current ESPN Insider Bobby Marks told The Post, noting a logjam of teams in contention in both conferences. “The Knicks, they’re vanilla. There’s nothing wrong with being vanilla. But [with the way they’re structured], if you’re baking a cake, they’re a cake that you have to leave in for an extra 5 or 6 minutes to see how it turns out.
“Two years ago, being the No. 4 seed, they overachieved. The hardest thing to do is make that next jump.”
They perhaps could have done so had they landed Donovan Mitchell in the offseason to pair alongside Brunson for a dynamic backcourt. Instead, the room was reportedly split on the asking price being too high for a package that included Grimes, Mitchell went to Cleveland and the Cavs are 18-11 and third in the East, behind only Boston and Milwaukee.
The Knicks, meanwhile, continue to linger in the middle while being familiarly close to the bottom.
It’s also likely that if they do make a deal it could come much closer to the Feb. 9 deadline. Of the trades made during the regular season since 2017, 84 percent of them happened the week of the deadline, per Marks.
The Knicks also have something of a reputation around the NBA.
“It’s almost become a thing around the league; is there a sense of urgency or is it just like every other year?” one agent told The Post. “Guys like [playing] there, but at least when it comes to free agents, there’s a lot of, is someone gonna come save the Knicks? That scares some guys off.”
Still, they have plenty of movable assets, both current and future with a stockpile of draft picks.
“Knicks fans don’t want to hear it, but they have the ingredients to make a deal for an A-list player,” Marks said. “But there is no A-list player available right now.”
