A four-time champion and notorious Knicks skeptic believes Mikal Bridges’ gamble will backfire and force team president Leon Rose to undertake another rebuild.
“I just don’t think this group is good enough to beat Boston. At the end of the day, you’re building a team that you hope can beat Boston. And I don’t think this team is going to beat Boston,” Warriors forward Draymond Green said on his podcast “The Draymond Green Show.” “So you get a year or two like the Houston Rockets. I don’t know if you all remember the Rockets when we (the Warriors) were on the run. … You had two years and oops, it didn’t work out. Clint Capela’s gone. The first domino falls. And then once the first domino falls, that’s it. It just goes from there. That’s what I think is going to happen. That’s the way I see it going. If it doesn’t work out, that’s exactly the way it’s going to go. So you heard it here first.”
Green’s reference to the Rockets was about their failed attempts with James Harden beyond the Western Conference Finals, losing three times to the Warriors in the playoffs.
The dismantling of that Houston team — which began with the Capela trade to the Hawks — sparked a current streak of four consecutive years out of the playoffs, which included three years with a winning percentage below .270.
The Knicks, who haven’t reached the conference finals since 2000, agreed to give up five future first-round picks and a pick swap to the Nets for Bridges.
It was the boldest move yet by Rose, who had been hoarding draft picks for the chance to land a star.
Bridges doesn’t achieve stardom, but is considered a perfect fit as a durable, two-way former college teammate of Jalen Brunson.
The upside is a team composition that will compete with the Celtics and possibly eliminate them.
It’s a bet on Brunson’s stardom, OG Anunoby’s health and Julius Randle’s impact on winning.
Green is betting on the decline.
“The Knicks are in a situation where they want to go, and I respect that, I think you have to go at some point,” Green added. “But what just happened with the trade is you know if it doesn’t work out in two or three years, the Knicks are going to rebuild again because they traded all their picks, and then they will try to trade these guys, get some picks back and that’s kind of how it all happens. »
“I feel sorry for the Knicks fans, but that’s the way I think it’s going to play out and I don’t think it’s an indictment of Mikal who I think is like a top-tier NBA player, like you know, you have levels, but hey, …
Green was wrong about the Knicks recently, when he emphatically predicted they would fall to the 76ers in the first round of the playoffs.
“Nobody stops (Joel) Embiid,” he said at the time.
The Knicks won this series in five games.
News Source : nypost.com
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