RJ Barrett, Damian Lillard, Fear Street
More rambling from a crazy person
I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a perfect trade for a superstar in the NBA. There’s always going to be risk involved.
The most successful superstar trades in recent memory were easily Anthony Davis to the Lakers and Kawhi Leonard to the Raptors. Both helped their teams win a championship — Kawhi in ’19, AD in ‘20.
But both teams were equipped to win a championship. When the Lakers traded for Davis, they already had LeBron James. The Raptors were coming off a 59 win season and the №1 seed in the East when they traded for Kawhi.
But life moves pretty fast in the NBA. The Raptors are picking in the lottery, and the Lakers just were bounced in the first round of the playoffs.
LA traded three firsts and two pick swaps to get Davis. Now they face the harsh reality that LeBron is human, and Davis is injury prone. With that said, they won a title. You make that trade 100 times out of 100.
Toronto lost Kawhi after one season, and Pascal Siakam isn’t the player they hoped he’d be. With Kyle Lowry’s exit looming, Toronto is facing a potentially massive rebuild. But like the Lakers, you never regret a title-winning trade.
Conversely, things are looking up for the New York Knicks. Only the Knicks aren’t prepared for a championship run. So why take a big swing on a trade for Damian Lillard when things are going so well?
The last time the Knicks were good, Netflix only had two original series. Bonus points if you watched either show because I watch a lot of TV, and I’ve never seen Lilyhammer or Hemlock Grove.
The Steve Mills-David Fizdale era in New York was a shitshow at the fuck factory, but for the first time that I can remember, things appear functional within my favorite basketball team.
The Knicks have a competent front office, a great head coach, and James Dolan is staying out of the way. A culture (that word, man) is being built in New York. And without Kenny Atkinson. Go figure.
Knicks fans were riding the high of the team’s best season since 2012–13. For once, we all agreed on something. The season was a success. And then it happened.
The Portland Trail Blazers are the Titanic, and Damian Lillard may possibly want a life raft at some point. But could his life raft actually be headed for New York? (Hire me New York Post.)
Trading for Lillard is a no-brainer. He’s a 6x All-Star and 6x All-NBA performer. Dame is a legit top 10 player, who is money in the clutch, and he’s gonna save us from the deepest darkest depths of point guard hell!
That’s what Tommy Beer thought. He suffered the wrath of Knicks Twitter recently when he wrote that the Knicks should go all in on a Dame trade. The problem is that any realistic Dame trade would mean losing RJ Barrett.
Maybe Tommy didn’t know that suggesting a trade of Barrett was as dangerous as criticizing Frank Ntilikina’s looks, but he found out quickly. Fans pounced on this dude.
The guy who makes the fake banners that became so popular they appeared in Sports Illustrated was getting roasted on Twitter for his fake lineups. Irony? Satire? It’s something.
Every fanbase overvalues its young players. I know I’m guilty of it.
A year ago at this time, I was still pissed that Reggie Bullock had stolen Damyean Dotson’s minutes. I probably went a little overboard with #FreeDot, and I know there are some anti-Bullock tweets I wish I could take back.
But it’s not just us. We’re not the only crazy ones.
Lakers fans think THT (that’s what they call him, right?) is getting them Steph/Luka/Zion/Beal (insert other fantasy land player here). Heat fans anointed Tyler “Raging Bullshit” Herro untouchable in a James Harden trade.
But RJ Barrett is significantly better than Herro, and whatever a THT is — I think it’s something Joe Rogan takes.
But when the Dame buzz came out, my dumb fan brain went nuclear like it always does: JOSE CALDERON. RON BAKER. EMMANUEL MUDIAY. DENNIS SMITH JR. Go get the great player.
Then I started reading Twitter like an idiot, and the crazy set in on everything about the Melo trade. We can’t do it. Wait, maybe we can get him for Knox and one of the Dallas picks?
It’s been over a week and I have my take on this whole mess. I wouldn’t trade RJ for Dame.
I’m an unapologetically biased Duke fan. I want RJ and Zion on the Knicks together at some point. Cam Reddish would be fun too because RJ and Cam are both going to be good. I love them both, but RJ is going to be better.
Now, back to RJ-Dame. Keeping RJ is about much more than just my Zion pipe dream. Even at the peak of Latvian Bargnani’s run in New York, we never experienced the joy that RJ Barrett has given us.
There was always a level of concern with Bargs. It was either his lack of post game, multitude of injuries, or that he seemed like he was kind of a dick. Good thing he’s all better now that he’s playing for Rick Carlisle in the healthy environment created by Mark Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks. Oh, wait.
I wasn’t alive when the Knicks drafted Patrick Ewing. RJ Barrett is already the best Knicks draft pick that I’ve ever seen. I love me some David Lee but it’s true.
The Knicks have finally started to shed their reputation as a league-wide laughingstock. The addition of respected figures Leon Rose, World Wide Wes, and Tom Thibodeau gave them the cache to change people’s minds.
Rose invested in an elite crew around him — including the scouting department. Every year we talk about how one of those “smart front offices” picked up a steal in the draft. This time it was us with Quickley.
The Knicks are actually building a good core of young players with RJ at the top of that group. RJ seems perfect for New York and perfect for Thibs.
I also feel like the Knicks would really be pushing their luck with the basketball gods if they traded away the first draft pick they hit on in 35 years. And those gods have never been kind to the Knicks.
Look, we have no idea how good RJ is going to be. I don’t think he’ll ever be a top 10 player, like Dame is now, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he was a top 25 player someday. It would shock me if RJ Barrett never made an All-Star team. It’s too early to give up on our boy.
You make superstar trades to win championships. Ideally, if a guy like Dame becomes available you’d be in a position as a franchise to trade all your picks for the next million years and give up your best prospect.
The Knicks are nowhere close to being in that position.
Streaming recommendation
Fear Street: Part One (Netflix)
I loved the first part of the Fear Street trilogy. There were clear influences from the Scream movies and legendary Halloween killer Michael Myers.
Without giving too much away, the story takes place in 1994 in Shadyside, where seemingly ordinary people have been randomly committing gruesome murders for centuries. Wouldn’t you move? Just saying.
The story revolves around the main character (Deena), who has just broken up with her girlfriend (Sam), and Deena’s dorky murder-obsessed little brother who’s in love with his sister’s best friend — a cheerleader. Duh.
It’s teenagers running away from nasty shit that is trying to kill them. If you like horror movies, like Scream and Halloween, you’re going to love Fear Street.
If you watch this one and like it, you don’t have to wait long for Part Two: 1978. It comes out this Friday, July 9th.
