Wednesday will mark 140 days since the Knicks shook up their fan base and sent a lightning bolt through the league on the eve of training camp. All of that feels rather cute given the way the Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis swap electrified the basketball world two weeks ago, and the continuing aftershocks still reverberating in Dallas, in L.A., and everywhere else in the NBA.
Still, for the Knicks, the deal that sent Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo to Minnesota and brought Karl-Anthony Towns here has already brought a host of tangible rewards. And if the Knicks are going to climb higher than their perceived ceiling this year, it’s ultimately the broad impact of that deal that’s going to get them there.
There is little doubt the Knicks have gotten the better of the trade. Towns’ numbers across the board are better than Randle’s, and maybe none exhibits that more than Towns’ Player Efficiency Rating, which is 25.0 across 49 games; Randle’s PER is 17.2, and he’s struggled to establish his role with the Timberwolves.
DiVincenzo had extended issues shooting at the start of the season, and though he had started to heat up before going down with a toe injury a month ago, he was still shooting just 37 percent from 3, more than 3 percentage points less than the 40.1 he made as a Knick last year. More than his shooting, what made DiVincenzo so popular among the Garden regulars was his toughness, especially in the playoffs. And it’ll be curious to see what the Knicks can do to match that this time around.
