{"id":564164,"date":"2026-01-27T14:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T14:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/564164\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T14:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T14:25:13","slug":"knicks-trade-deadline-targets-include-2-time-nba-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/564164\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks Trade Deadline Targets Include 2-Time NBA Champion"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Knicks are far past the days when they feared missing the playoffs. Armed with an army of proud defenders and an offensive dynamo in team captain Jalen Brunson<\/a>, they\u2019re a balanced squad. Even with Brunson\u2019s lieutenant \u2014Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a> \u2013hitting a rough patch, they pose a threat to any team they face.<\/p>\n

In spite of their upper-bound upside, the Knicks\u2019 front office knows that they could stand to refine the roster. An additional ball-handler, one who could step up when Brunson\u2019s on the sideline, would be ideal<\/a>. Taking that into account, several lead guards have been mentioned as trade targets for New York as the Feb. 5 deadline closes in. However, one option stands above the rest.<\/p>\n

Knicks Trade Deadline Targets Include 2-Time NBA Champion Jrue Holiday<\/p>\n

There have been \u201crumbles\u201d that the Knicks have been entertaining the concept of trading for Portland Trail Blazers guard Jrue Holiday<\/a>, The Stein Line\u2019s Marc Stein reports.<\/p>\n

A two-time NBA champion, Holiday has redeemed himself after an off-putting 2024-25 campaign<\/a>. While playing for the Boston Celtics last season, the Californian was uncharacteristically inefficient from beyond the arc, shooting 35.3% from 3. More problematic was the six-time All-Defensive selection\u2019s defensive slippage, Holiday appearing to be one of Father Time\u2019s latest victims.<\/p>\n

This season, Holiday has not only got his outside efficiency back above league-average, he\u2019s helping spearhead a top-10 3-point defense<\/a>. Notably, this is an area in which New York\u2019s defense is actually horrible, ranking in the bottom-five among 30 teams. While the Blazers only allow opponents to shoot 34.9% from 3, (eighth-best in the NBA), the Knicks\u2019 opponents are sniping them at a 37.2% rate (26th in the NBA). Portland\u2019s holding opponents to 12.5 3-point conversions per game (sixth-best in the NBA), and New York\u2019s opponents are making 14.4 3-pointers per game (28th in the NBA).<\/p>\n

For a team that\u2019s been losing by an average margin<\/a> of 10.8 points per game and winning by an average margin of 14.1<\/a> points per game in 2025-26, that may not seem important. However, just consider this. The Trail Blazers\u2019 defense allows -5.7 fewer points from 3 than the Knicks defense. Holiday (15.3 points per game) averages +4.8 more points per game than Jordan Clarkson<\/a> (9.3 points per game). Of course, Clarkson has fallen out of New York\u2019s rotation. Nevertheless, the point differential (+10.4 points per game) is even steeper when comparing Holiday\u2019s 2025-26 scoring average to Tyler Kolek<\/a>\u2018s (4.9 points per game).<\/p>\n

Improving The Knicks From The Locker Room<\/p>\n

Basketball is more than a game of numbers, even assuming the transitive math was that simple. Even so, it\u2019s clear that swapping Clarkson or Kolek for Holiday would make a significant difference. That\u2019s without even factoring in the intangible aspect of adding him to the rotation.<\/p>\n

Again, Holiday\u2019s a two-time NBA champion, having won a ring with the Celtics in 2024 and the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021. He knows what it\u2019s going to take for the Knicks to raise another title banner more than anyone on the team. He\u2019s also a three-time winner of the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year award. To that point, with Knicks players constantly pointing the finger of blame at each other, they could probably use another locker room leader. As affable as they come, he can help New York rediscover their poise on and off the court.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Jaime Valdez-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Knicks are far past the days when they feared missing the playoffs. Armed with an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,2038,304,6,6050,7170,2828,1136,191,3810,3806],"class_list":{"0":"post-564164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-jrue-holiday","10":"tag-knicks","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-nba-rumors","13":"tag-nba-trade","14":"tag-nba-trade-deadline","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-knicks","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkknicks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115967526644397767","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}