Knicks' Biggest Roster Mistake Revealed

For as sloppy as the New York Knicks have been throughout the vast majority of the 21st century, they've been fairly clean halfway through managing the 2020s. They entered the decade without many assets, but over time drafted, signed and traded their way into one of last season's Eastern Conference Finalists and a team that can continue contending for several more years.

They aren't without their occasional missteps, though, and their biggest roster mistake was recently catalogued by ESPN in compiling the most notable such instances from every franchise over the last five years.

The Knicks got away from the list nearly unscathed, with their dud arriving in the form of a four-year Evan Fournier contract and registering as the third-least impactful on the power ranking.

"The Knicks added Fournier via a sign-and-trade on the strength of a two-year run in which he averaged 18 points per game and made 40% of his 3s. But after averaging a respectable 14 points in 80 games in his first season in New York, Fournier's game fell apart," Zach Kram wrote. "He averaged just 6 points in 27 games in his second season and missed New York's playoff run because of an injury, then averaged 4 points in three games in his third season before moving to Detroit at the deadline."

His lone productive season in New York was the one year in which the Tom Thibodeau-led Knicks missed the playoffs, and he was quickly out of the league after his short stint with the Detroit Pistons, back to playing in Europe before the four years he originally signed for had finished up.

The Knicks rebounded, compiling numerous multifaceted wings and forwards who could offer more beyond Fournier's once-proficient 3-point shooting, enough to spare the Knicks from anything more severe than the "Small-scale problems" tier of ESPN's ranking.