How Marcus Morris Sr. built the Knicks team he’s joining

Through a complicated web of transactions, we have Mook to thank for the Knicks we have today.

On Sunday, the Knicks announced the signing of Marcus Morris Sr. to a non-guaranteed contract. In my write-up on the reunion with Morris, I tried to condense an outstanding fact that I found out while doing research. After his terrific half-season with the Knicks, Marcus Morris was traded in February 2020 to the Los Angeles Clippers. The return from that trade package seems fairly regular, but the way the return evolved has led to an explosion of talent on the Knicks roster. By trading Morris, the Knicks inadvertently set up their future in ways that don’t even seem real.

A disclaimer: I’m stretching things here. The Marcus Morris trade did not directly land the Knicks half of their current rotation. I’m simply pointing out that the pieces acquired for him have exchanged hands and contributed in part to a handful of players on the roster today. You’ll see what I mean in a bit.

Morris As a Knick

If Gregg Popovich had his way, Marcus Morris Sr. would’ve never worn the orange and blue. On July 6, 2019, Morris agreed to a two-year, $20 million pact with the San Antonio Spurs. San Antonio was starting to regress but they looked for Morris to join young guards Dejounte Murray and Derrick White along with established veterans in DeMar DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge in maintaining the Spurs as a playoff team.

The Spurs didn’t have the cap space for this move, so they spent the meantime trading away Davis Bertans to get the room. Unfortunately, Morris had issues with his agency and Rich Paul, parted ways, and negotiated a new deal with the New York Knicks five days later. Just one minute after Woj reported that the Spurs pulled their offer on July 11, Morris signed a $15 million deal for one season. Morris, who’s from Philadelphia, saw the opportunity to come home as enticing:

Morris put up a career year. Usually a complementary scorer on teams like Boston or Detroit, Morris was the co-top option with Julius Randle, averaging 19.6 points and 5.4 rebounds on a blistering 43.9% from 3 on 6.1 attempts per game. He made a great decision for himself by raising his value to be dealt midseason to a contender and he would come out of this with a lucrative four-year, $64 million extension a month after the end of the bubble in 2020. Meanwhile, the Knicks came out incredibly well from this.

The Trade

LAC Receives: Marcus Morris Sr.

NYK Receives: Mo Harkless, 2020 LAC 1st, 2021 LAC Pick Swap, 2021 DET 2nd

This was part of a larger three-team deal, but the Wizards’ involvement doesn’t matter here. They swapped Isaiah Thomas for Jerome Robinson with the Wizards and sent the Knicks a Euro-stash in Issuf Sanon.

Mo Harkless played 12 games the rest of the 2019-20 season with the Knicks, starting ten and averaging 6.8 points and 3.3 rebounds. Morris’s shooting regressed heavily in LA but they still gave him a lucrative extension. He would rebound to go back to the efficient 3-point shooting over the next two seasons. The Clippers aren’t regretting the trade, even if they didn’t come out nearly as well as the Knicks did.

Trading Morris made sense even if the Knicks got nothing out of it. Organizationally, they were operating as if they were a few years from contention. Morris was an expiring deal. Hell, they probably would’ve done this with Randle in 2020-21 if he didn’t turn into a star. The 2021 pick swap obviously didn’t convey, although the Knicks made it closer than anyone would’ve expected. This left the return as a measly first-round pick and a second-round pick. What could the new regime possibly do with these two assets to transform the team?

A lot, actually.

The first-round pick that the Knicks acquired landed at 27th overall, giving them 8 and 27 after they predictably fell in the lottery again. Leon Rose inherited these assets from Scott Perry and proceeded to cook a gourmet meal. By the end of the night, he turned the 27th pick and 38th pick into the 25th pick and a future second.

Draft Night 2020

The Knicks initially traded the 27th pick, alongside the 38th pick, for the 23rd pick. This ropes in another trade, as Pick 38 was acquired from the Hornets in exchange for Willy Hernangomez. With the 23rd pick, the Knicks drafted Leandro Bolmaro, which was met with extreme confusion by myself and the fanbase. Fortunately, as Leon Rose tends to do, he flipped the Argentine product immediately in a three-team trade.

Bolmaro’s rights went to the Timberwolves along with Ricky Rubio and the draft rights to Jaden McDaniels from the Thunder. Like the Clippers, the Wolves here are not complaining about how all this went down. OKC thought they were getting the best player in Aleksej Pokusevski, who was picked 17th. Whoops. The Knicks acquired the 25th pick and the Pistons’ 2023 2nd Round Pick in this deal. Who did they take with the 25th pick? Immanuel Jaylen Quickley.

Over his three and a half seasons in the orange and blue, Quickley was a fan favorite who blossomed from a standard reserve guard into the best sixth man in the league. If not for the Boston media, he likely wins the 2023 Sixth Man of the Year award. In 24 minutes a game, he averaged 12.9 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 3.0 assists on 42% from the field and 37% from 3. He was a great hit by the Knicks’ front office and that shows in the lucrative $150 million extension he signed this offseason. But, it wasn’t the Knicks who signed him…

Fast forward now to the next offseason. The Knicks are coming off of a tremendous season and all of a sudden, the team is looking to contend. The other piece of the trade is used here. The 2021 Detroit second-round pick (sidenote: why do the Knicks have so many Detroit seconds?).

Draft Night 2021

With the 32nd pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, the New York Knicks select Jeremiah Robinson-Earl. As a Villanova fan, I was excited for a Nova Knick (boy, I was early). Unfortunately, more Leon Rose shenanigans led to a trade back with his bestie Sam Presti. In return, the Knicks scooped up the 34th and 36th picks. With those picks, they picked two different guards. The first is a foreign Eurostash prospect in Rokas Jokubaitis. The other? A wirey 3-and-D pest out of West Virginia, Miles “Deuce” McBride.

So, this is where we start to stray from conventional stuff to stretching it. Directly and without argument, the Knicks got Quickley and Deuce from the trade. That’s already good enough!

Oh, dear reader, it gets much better. Quickley was becoming so good in his role that eventually it became a question if it was worth it to give him a nine-digit deal to be a sixth man behind Brunson. That, along with the frustrating stagnation of RJ Barrett, enabled the front office to pull the trigger on the biggest in-season trade of their tenure.

Although RJ was valued by the Raptors and has been much better there, the prize was Quickley. He’s their starting PG of the future who they’re paying lucratively. That said, it is completely fair to link Marcus Morris to OG Anunoby. Quickley was the most valuable piece in the deal that brought the transformative wing to the Knicks.

But wait, what about the 2023 Pistons’ pick that the Knicks got in the complicated maneuvering in 2020?

Draft Night 2022

After a frustrating season, the Knicks probably needed to re-evaluate their path forward. They had the eleventh pick and when it came time to choose, they went with the French product Ousmane Dieng. Another interesting pick… but WAIT.

Dieng got flipped for a bunch of future picks. Then, the Knicks traded back in for Jalen Duren before sending him to Detroit in a way to dump Kemba Walker. That was very complicated but here’s the sum up:

So, where does the Morris trade come into play? Well, the Knicks were now focusing their crosshairs on a certain prodigal son in free agency. After hiring his father as assistant coach, the Knicks wanted to clear $30 million in cap space for Jalen Brunson. Kemba clears less than a third of that.

After the draft, Leon called up Troy Weaver and got him to take on Nerlens Noel and Alec Burks to clear space for Brunson and at-the-time residential big Isaiah Hartenstein. The two teams swapped some picks, but the incentive for Detroit to take the contracts would be re-acquiring their 2023 2nd Round Pick, which would land at 31. That pick was acquired in the Quickley trade, which draws back to… Mook Morris.

Summary

Directly, the Knicks got Immanuel Quickley, Rokas Jokubaitis, and Deuce McBride from the Morris trade. However, everything is more fun with a trade tree.

Through complicated draft night maneuvering, savvy trades, and more, Marcus Morris has a hand in also bringing OG Anunoby, Jalen Brunson, and Isaiah Hartenstein to the Knicks.

Want to see it all in a complicated web associating a half-dozen trades? Here ya go!

Knicks Trade Away: Marcus Morris, RJ Barrett, 2020 CHA 2nd, 2024 DET 2nd, 2026 NYK 2nd, Nerlens Noel, Alec Burks, Leandro Bolmaro

Knicks Acquire: OG Anunoby, Deuce McBride, Rokas Jokubaitis, $ to sign Jalen Brunson and Isaiah Hartenstein

Not. Too. Shabby.