The New York Knicks have agreed to acquire guard Derrick Rose in a trade with the Detroit Pistons, sending out Dennis Smith Jr. and the Charlotte Hornets' 2021-second round pick.
How much will this deal help the Knicks' surprise playoff push this season? It is a positive or negative sign for the direction of the franchise? And how will Smith fit in Detroit?
Kevin Pelton hands out his trade grades.
New York Knicks get: Derrick Rose
Detroit Pistons get: Dennis Smith Jr., 2021 second-round pick (via Charlotte)
New York Knicks: B-
Reuniting Rose with head coach Tom Thibodeau seems to be an indication of the Knicks' growing confidence in their ability to make the playoffs. More than a third of the way through the shortened 72-game schedule, New York is eighth in the Eastern Conference. FiveThirtyEight projects the Knicks finishing with the East's ninth-best record on average, which would put them in the play-in tournament, and gives them a 33% chance of earning a playoff spot.
Adding Rose should help New York's chances. Starting under Thibodeau in Minnesota, he has reinvented himself as a useful reserve scorer capable of generating offense at high volume with near-average efficiency. Rose's 2019-20 performance in Detroit was particularly encouraging in this regard as it didn't require the career-best 3-point shooting we saw the previous season with the Timberwolves.
The issue, as Knicks fans will be happy to point out, is which point guard Rose will replace in the New York rotation. Knicks observers have been clamoring for Thibodeau to promote promising rookie Immanuel Quickley, who has been easily the team's most effective point guard this season, to the starting five.
Much like Rose, Quickley has been scoring at high volume (he's using a team-high 27% of New York's plays with a shot attempt, trip to the free throw line or turnover) with average-ish efficiency (his true shooting percentage is .558; league average is .568). As a scorer, Elfrid Payton has never come close to that kind of efficiency, and his .471 TS% this season is worse than his poor career mark (.490).
Still, Thibodeau has favored Payton, the more reliable player and -- at least in theory -- playmaker. (Payton is actually averaging fewer assists than Quickley on a per-possession basis, though his career mark is much better.)
If the Knicks plan to sub in Rose for Quickley, that's unlikely to provide much of an upgrade on the play New York has been getting at the point -- with two caveats. First, we're early enough in Quickley's career that his current level of performance can't yet be considered established. Second, Quickley has been notably inconsistent, likely the source of Thibodeau's reluctance to give him a larger role. Three times in 21 games this season, Quickley has made just one shot in nine attempts or more, something no player in the Stathead.com database has done more than six times in a single season.
The more substantial possible improvement would come from swapping out Payton's sub-replacement production to date for Rose, although that would require the Knicks' starting five to adjust how they're playing. New York frequently runs its offense through power forward Julius Randle, whose 4.1 minutes time of possession this season ranks fourth among big men per Second Spectrum tracking on NBA Advanced Stats. Rose's time of possession (45% of his minutes on offense) is much higher than Payton's (35%).
Given how much time the point guard with Randle likely will spend spotting up, the wisest course of action might be to start Quickley (shooting 37% from 3-point range), with Rose given the keys to the second unit. Realistically, however, I'd expect Payton to continue starting with Rose playing a lion's share of the minutes off the bench.
If that's the case, this isn't necessarily a bad trade, but it is a discouraging sign for the Knicks' chances of maintaining the long-term vision they showed last offseason. A long playoff run is unlikely for New York this season, and the Knicks' focus should remain on developing their young talent into a core that could attract stars in free agency. While I'm not convinced that benching Quickley would specifically set that back given that the relationship between minutes played and development is tentative at best, replacing a promising 21-year-old rookie with a well-traveled 32-year-old veteran would portend worse decisions ahead.
Detroit Pistons: B-
It was a question of when, not if, the Pistons would trade Rose prior to this year's deadline. Rose didn't figure into Detroit's long-term plans, and his expiring contract made it imperative the team get value in return this season.
My ESPN colleague Adrian Wojnarowski reports that the Pistons view Smith as a reclamation project similar to the handful of former high picks as reclamation they've added in the past six months under GM Troy Weaver, including Jahlil Okafor and Josh Jackson -- the latter drafted five picks ahead of Smith in 2017. That helps explain why Detroit moved Rose a month-plus before the trade deadline for modest draft compensation. If the season ended today, Charlotte's second-rounder would be the 43rd pick, though FiveThirtyEight's projections have it landing 38th on average.
When New York acquired Smith in the Kristaps Porzingis trade in 2019, I was excited about his potential. Smith subsequently averaged 14.7 PPG and 5.4 APG in 21 games for the Knicks in 2018-19, an encouraging performance at age 21. Somewhere between then and the start of the 2019-20 season, Smith seemed to lose confidence in his shot. After making 45% of his 2-point attempts and 67% of his free throws his first two seasons, Smith dropped to 36% and 51% respectively, dropping out of New York's rotation.
Under new management, the Knicks moved on this season, and Smith saw just 28 minutes of action before requesting to go to the G League in search of more playing time. Oddly, Smith's two longest outings since last February both came against the Pistons during the 2020 preseason. He shot just 4-of-12 in them after a more encouraging preseason debut saw him post eight points, five steals and four assists in 16 minutes.
With rookie starter Killian Hayes not expected back until March at the very earliest due to a hip subluxation, there are minutes available at point guard in Detroit. With Rose sitting out the past week in what is now apparent was anticipation of the trade, the Pistons have used second-round pick Saben Lee, who's on a two-way contract, and natural wing Rodney McGruder as backups to Delon Wright.
I'm skeptical at this point that Smith can be a quality rotation player. If not, however, Detroit has nothing invested in him beyond this year.