First-year New York Knicks president Leon Rose is attempting to make waves in his first offseason in that role.
It was previously noted that Rose, a former player agent, wanted to blow up the Knicks’ roster after yet another down season in the Big Apple.
We now have more, rather interesting information on this.
Knicks reportedly have trade offer set for Thunder star Chris Paul
Brandon Robinson of Heavy.com is reporting that New York already has a package put together for the future Hall of Fame guard. Here’s how it would look:
- Thunder trade Chris Paul to the Knicks for former first-round picks Kevin Knox and Frank Ntilikina as well as Elfrid Payton and Bobby Portis. New York would also send its first-round pick in 2021 (from Dallas) and second-round pick in 2021 (from Charlotte) to Oklahoma City.
That would seemingly be a high price to pay for a 35-year-old guard in the back end of his career. There are also financial issues with acquiring Paul, something that has turned other teams off since he was traded from Houston to Oklahoma City.
Chris Paul contract
Paul is set to earn a combined $85 million-plus over the next two seasons. He has a player option for $44.2 million in 2021-22 that he is more than likely going to exercise.
This is a huge amount of money for a player who likely only has a couple more years of good basketball left him him. With that said, Paul continues to play at a high level.
Paul had a career rebirth in Oklahoma City
Pretty much a salary throw-in as part of the Russell Westbrook blockbuster trade ahead of the 2019-20 season, Paul was absolutely brilliant for the Thunder this past season.
The 10-time All-Star averaged 17.6 points, 5.0 rebounds and 6.7 assists on 49% shooting en route to leading Oklahoma City to a surprising playoff appearance.
The question here is whether Paul would even want to be moved to the Knicks. Short of the team adding another star player, New York remains in rebuild mode. Pretty much on his last legs, would Paul want to join a team that’s nowhere near championship contention?
As for the Knicks, trading two young players and a valuable first-round pick for a 35-year-old guard really doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. That said, these are the Knicks we’re talking about. Nothing would surprise us.
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