My initial thoughts are this.
Giving up IQ hurts me. He was single handedly our bench and he got better every season. Hes gonna be even better in a bigger role. That said, he had no bigger role on the Knicks. Couldnt play him a ton with Brunson, and couldnt play him ahead of Brunson. That made it so the Knicks couldnt pay him the 120+Ms that he was looking for. So even though it sucks to see him go, and his departure is gonna hurt the Knicks, I understand we couldnt lose him for nothing. And including him in the trade and not giving up FRPs makes sense.
With RJ, im always gonna have love for him, but it just didnt work. Maybe if RJ had the team to himself early he would have developed, but on this team he just did not. Him and Randle did not complement each other at all. So hes development just stagnated. It was time to let him go.
Getting OG back for all this is a great look. Especially not giving up FRPs. I was worried I was gonna see RJ, IQ, and 2 FRPs for OG. Seeing no FRPs makes it a good trade.
OG gives the Knicks a better ball handler, a more efficient shooter, way better intantibles, but mostly the defense. OG can defend 1 to 5, which will make switching better. Just wish we had Mitch behind him.
Overall, the Knicks need to now figure out the bench. Hopefully Grimes takes over and matches IQs output but I doubt it.
This trade is great on paper. Need to see them play to know for sure. But on paper cant help but be excited.
