The Ringer’s Bill Simmons discusses some of the greatest what-ifs for the Knicks after they failed to trade for Donovan Mitchell last summer and are now witnessing his success in Cleveland.
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35 Comments
I hate content like this
More sad stories for poorly run franchises
Dam did Isaiah Thomas Destroy that Knicks team or what !!
lmao knicks copium
Imagine Donovan dropping 71 for the Knicks 😅😅😅 the world would have stopped!
Dave Checketts messed with Bernard King while King was hurt/ unbelievable. Congrats Bill. I know paper cuts less painful than Knicks history. 😭
When Minnesota took Flynn over Curry, I was heartbroken.
As a LOOONG suffering Knick fan, Bill thanks for putting this kick in the nuts podcast for Knicks fans to relive the failures.
A weird what if for me will always be not re-signing Jeremy Lin. There is something to be said about the team chemistry that Knicks squad had with Lin and he was perfect in that D'Antoni system. I'm not saying they would win a championship or anything like that but I do think, at the bare minimum, they could have made a deeper playoff run at some point.
Knicks are the worst run franchise ever, and I’m a Bengals fan.
Ok I feel there's a myth here that needs to be dispelled: the Knicks supposedly really good young core before Melo had literally one player 26 or younger who became even moderately noteworthy, and that's David Lee. The rest were roleplayers or busts. So those who say they should have stood pat and kept building up their young core are just ignoring reality: the Knicks weren't going anywhere with a David Lee focused rebuild. So it's a lot more understandable than people make it out to be that they swung for Melo.
Also, mentioning Thomas and NOT mentioning Phil Jackson is a travesty.
Going after the Knicks is going for the low hanging fruit. Boring!
McHale Top 35? Such a homer. He was a great player, but he's much closer to Top 70 than top 35.
The biggest Knicks what if is:
What if they gave Pat Riley the full control he wanted in 1995 instead of keeping Ernie Grunfeld as GM
Do the Knicks have the titles that the Heat eventually got
Plus the whole butterfly effect of no Scott Layden no Isiah, no Phil Jackson etc….
Funny that he said we’d be a top 5 seed when we’re #6 right now 😂
Please do the Sacramento Kings next!
Because NOT drafting Luka at #2, instead getting Bagley, set the franchise back among a number of horrible moves
I just clicked on this video so I can post a question in this comment section: "who cares about Knicks what ifs"? Is there less relevant topic for discussion
Bill spined dr j having a hall of fame career and winning a title to being a bad situation
It's 2023 and we have 4k TVs but this billionaire is too cheap to get a decent camera, unsubscribed due to absolute lack of care by the owner.
insane hating
What if they didn’t amnesty Chauncey billups and we signed Chris Paul that following summer
What About….What if the Knicks drafted Zion??!!?? In my opinion the next was screwed out of the lottery number one draft pick because that's when ad left the Pelicans and for some odd reason the NBA has a soft spot for expansion teams a star leaves. They did the same thing with magic making sure they got back to back number one draft picks. They also did the same thing with the next making sure they got Patrick ewing. We were supposed to get the number one pick and the Pelicans supposed to get number three at the very least it was supposed to end up with two but they screwed us knowing that if we don't ever get Zion or Moran we won't have a superstar
James Dolan is the problem in NY,always has been…
Scott Layden was worst than Isiah Thomas but for some reason he gets a pass.
I swear bill seems like a closeted Knicks fan
My favorite Knicks "what if". What if the Knicks resigned Bernard King? King actually played the last 6 games of Ewings' rookie season. However Ewing was hurt at that time. They were never on the court together for the Knicks even though they were teammates that season. King signs with the Nets and returns to all-star form. Ewing never played with his most talented teammate. How different things could have been for King, Ewing, & the Knicks.
Modern "What If" would be the 2017 draft and firing Phil Jackson the month before the draft. Could've had Donovan Mitchell and not Frank Ntilikina.
The Knicks are the basketball version of AS Roma. Biggest potential brand in their sports since they represent the most important city in their continent and have an insanely passionate and large fanbase, yet they can't find a way to be consistently good and only find success in occasional years when the all the stars align but still they don't win nearly as much as they should all things considered. As Roma found a Mourinho that is trying kicking and screaming to drag them out of mediocrity, maybe the Knicks will find their Mourinho in the form of a superstar player that signs with them because he ran out of options and winning in New York is the most fascinating challenge there is
Bill, come on man. Plenty of these what ifs you posed as the biggest are just “if the Knicks managed to get player A in free agency” even though at the time the Knicks were a tire fire of a franchise. Meanwhile you miss what if Masai Ujiri didn’t manage to dump Andrea Bargiani on the Knicks for stuff that would end up being use to trade for Kawhi, or how about how Masai, when he started at Raptors GM, tried to trade Kyle Lowry to the Knicks only for Dolan to put the stop to the trade because he was afraid of getting fleeced by Masai for a third time. I truly think those deserve a spot over “Knicks didn’t get Durant” and “Knicks didn’t get LeBron and Co”, those were both delusional beliefs by fans and the front office because of how bad the Knicks had been up to that point.
The Nets was also offering picks in that Melo offer. Knicks had to pounce. Youre talking like the Knicks didnt have any comp for Melo
Missed one, what if the draft wasn't rigged and they didn't get Ewing?
Say what you want about Bill Simmons, but he does a great job of sharing some of the lesser known league history stuff.
Wow this makes me wanna apologize to dolan we been messing up way b4 him
Melo would’ve gotten traded to and resigned with the Nets. Knicks also couldn’t have kept Gallo and W. Chandler AND signed T. Chandler (future DPOY) and Melo in 2011 FA. Simmons got a few facts wrong on this.
Knowing we had a chance to get DR J fresh out of the ABA n didn’t pull the trigger is some highly upsetting shit but I wasn’t born then sooooo 😂