Why the New York Knicks should blow it up and rebuild

With the New York Knicks sitting at a lackluster 24-28, only good enough for the 12th seed out East, some Knicks fans are calling for the front office to blow the team up and rebuild again… and I kind of agree.

While there is still a decent chance that the Knicks make the play-in, is it really worth it to most likely lose in the play-in and sacrifice draft odds?

When you take into consideration the way the current Knicks roster is constructed, alongside their record, a change needs to be made, regardless of whether they make trades to improve or choose to rebuild.

Why the New York Knicks should blow it up and rebuild

I believe the best course of action for the New York Knicks is to tear down the current roster and rebuild. This would be done in order to help the development of players like Cam Reddish, Quentin Grimes, and Obi Toppin.

The way I look at it, with the way the Knicks are currently playing, how much worse would they really be if they traded the veterans away and ran a rotation of all the young players on the team?

While I know a good amount of Knicks fans will not agree with me on this one, it doesn’t hurt to consider it.

There are a bunch of reasons why the Knicks’ season has been so lackluster thus far. The biggest is that their returning veterans and free-agent acquisitions are not living up to their contracts, and another is somewhat poor coaching from Tom Thibodeau.

With returning guys like Julius Randle and Alec Burks not playing very well this season, it doesn’t make sense to keep them around with their contracts eating away at the cap space. Not to mention free agent acquisitions like Evan Fournier and Kemba Walker, who, for the most part, have been disappointing.

In today’s current NBA, it is better to be a bad team and take the chance at a top pick than to be a mid-tier team and lose in the first round every year while not getting better.

The Knicks have gotten worse as the year has gone on, and with the remaining schedule being one of the toughest in the league, it may be time to give up on this season.

The fact that the Knicks have struggled thus far while having a relatively easy schedule should make Knicks fans worry about the rest of the season. The Knicks have the third-toughest schedule in the entire league for the remainder of the year.

However, the number one reason the Knicks should tear down the current roster is so they can clear up rotational minutes for players like Reddish, Toppin, and Grimes – players whose minutes are often restricted or taken away due to the veterans.

It does not make much sense to keep the veteran players with big contracts if the team is not going to succeed. If they have all of these players under contract, yet are barely scraping for the last spot of the play-in tournament, why would they keep the team as is?

If the New York Knicks want to have success in the future, they should build around the already very promising young core they have, as opposed to keeping their veterans to barely make the play-in for one season.

Players like Cam Reddish, Obi Toppin, Quentin Grimes, and even Miles McBride are too talented to not get minutes over players like Kemba Walker, Alec Burks, etc.

While I know this may be an unpopular opinion, I am looking in a more future-oriented direction. Yes, short-term success is cool, but I’d rather put a focus on the development of the younger players as opposed to giving underperforming players like Walker and Burks minutes they simply don’t deserve.