A trade could be costly for the New York Knicks
Negotiating a trade with Sam Presti could go very wrong for the New York Knicks’ front office, no matter who is at the table. Presti is one of the best negotiators in the league and has rarely “lost” a big trade in the recent past. Even if the Thunder was desperate to get Paul of its books, a deal for him would have to include at least one or two of New York’s young players and a first-round pick (at least).
No matter what you think of Julius Randle, Frank Ntilikina, or Kevin Knox, that could prove to be too much for the Knicks to give up. New York also needs to be careful with their first-round picks. If this rebuild is going to take another few years to really get off the deck, they’re going to want to keep each and every one of them that they can.
Plus, especially ahead of the 2021 free agency period, I don’t think it would be wise for the Knicks to trade for $40-plus million in salary. While they would still have significant available cap space after adding Paul, it wouldn’t make sense heading into arguably the biggest offseason since the summer of 2010.
The Knicks don’t need to overthink this at all; Chris Paul could complicate their cap sheet and that’s not something they need at this point in their rebuild.