thelesterlee
Last season, the Hawks embarrassed the Knicks in the first round of the playoffs. Trae Young shushed the MSG crowd and I’m punching my keyboard in a rage just thinking about how terrible the Knicks looked against that team.
This season, the Knicks embarrassed the Hawks after sending Kevin Knox and a protected first round pick to Atlanta in exchange for Cam Reddish.
Last season, Cam Reddish came back from a long injury to a strong performance in the Eastern Conference Finals, including 6 threes in game 6.
No Knick (other than Solomon Hill) has played deeper in the playoffs than Cam Reddish, 22. pic.twitter.com/prXiWXAeXh
— Knicks Film School (@KnickFilmSkool) January 15, 2022
Reddish was the third ranked player out of high school behind only RJ Barrett and Zion Williamson. His potential is through the roof. Although his NBA career has been anchored due to injuries, he’s shown flashes of brilliance. I mean shit, this season he’s shooting 37% from 3 and 90% from the free thrown line. Most young players need to develop a jumper and Reddish is already one of the better shooters in the league.
The 6-foot-8 22-year old had to be moved from Atlanta because of how many players the team had ahead of him in the depth chart. Cam could never get steady minutes battling with Bogdan Bogdanović, DeAndre Hunter, Kevin Huerter and Lou Williams.
He has the size and athleticism to become one of the next great star wings like Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
Unfortunately, the Knicks may never see him develop into one of those stars because Reddish is walking onto a team that has the same exact problems that made Atlanta trade him. If he couldn’t get minutes ahead of Kevin Huerter, how is he going to crack a rotation over RJ Barrett, Alec Burks, Immanuel Quickley and Evan Fournier?
The only way this Reddish trade makes the Knicks better in any way is if he is repackaged into a bigger deal for an already established star. Otherwise, he’s pretty much filling in the role of the player he was traded for. He’s literally just taking Knox’s spot on the end of the bench until someone gets injured or there’s another Covid outbreak.
Perhaps his relationship with RJ will garner him some minutes. It’s possible that the front office has watched Barrett become the leading scorer the past few weeks and are shifting the focus from Julius Randle to Barrett in which case Reddish is a walking a made man.
But now the problem would be guys like Immanuel Quickley and Quentin Grimes being moved to the bottom of the depth chart. You can’t win games in the NBA playing a bunch of kids against grown men every night so all these young guys cannot thrive at the same time.
I get the feeling the addition of Cam Reddish is only one part of a larger plan. Enjoy the feeling of robbing the Hawks but don’t get comfortable with Reddish in a Knicks jersey. Don’t get comfortable with anyone in a Knicks jersey outside of RJ Barrett, Julius Randle and Tom Thibodeau’s son, Derrick Rose. Everyone is on the trade block right now.
Congrats to Reddish for being freed from Atlanta. And congrats to the Knicks for flipping him for Zion Williamson or Karl-Anthony Towns. Everyone wins. Except Atlanta.
