Knicks Insider Names Team's Biggest Roster Mistake

The New York Knicks have gone about building the right way. Teams usually don't end up playing in the Eastern Conference Finals by accident, but that's the position the team put itself in after years of working towards contention, giving them as promising of a near-future as they've had in the 21st century.

Still, no organization is without its missteps. An entire roster of active players, the financial battles they inadvertently get into with one another and the structure in which they're organized on and off the court make for some tricky decisions for each team's front offices to navigate, and while the Knicks have put themselves in a position to succeed, there are always moves that require revisitation.

Ian Begley, a Knicks insider for SNY, was asked in a mailbag Q&A about whether he thinks the team he covers has made any missteps in recent years, to which he answered with his own opinion.

"The one I look at is Obi Toppin," he said. "Toppin never had a clear path to significant minutes because he was behind an All-NBA player in Julius Randle. The Knicks then traded Toppin for a minimal return and he developed into an important rotation player for the Eastern Conference champion Pacers."

It was especially unfortunate for Toppin's Knicks tenure that Randle was similarly traded a year later, making his own trip to the Conference Finals with his Minnesota Timberwolves.

Toppin got some points over the Knicks when his Pacers prevailed in New York with a Game 7 victory to advance to the 2024 Conference Finals, and backed that win up with another series win in these most recent Eastern Finals. He was one of the most effective role players on the deep 2024-25 Pacers, going off during several key sequences against the Knicks and during Indiana's seven-game bid for the championship.