In what could be argued to be the first significant trade of the 2021-22 season, the Atlanta Hawks sent Cam Reddish to the New York Knicks with a 2022 first-round pick and Kevin Knox coming back to them. Although the first-round pick is notable, the trade seemed to be an immediate win for the Knicks given Reddish’s potential, even if he’s struggled somewhat in his short time with Atlanta. It turns out that there was a reason for the Hawks not getting much in return, as The Athletic’s Fred Katz and Chris Kirschner have reported that Reddish really did not want to be on the team anymore, submitting a request to be traded months ago. It sounds as if many teams had found out about this request far before today when we did, with the Lakers being one of the teams that tried to get Reddish out of there for pennies on the dollar.
Katz and Kirschner report that at some point in the past several months, the Lakers offered two second-round picks to the Hawks for Reddish’s services. The two reporters also state that the Hawks were never going to move Reddish for anything less than at least one first-round pick.
Reddish has had some injury issues which have resulted in him only playing in 118 games so far in his career despite being in the midst of his third-season, but he is a 6’8” wing and as we’ve learned so far this season, the Lakers could really use guys like that. To realize that, all you have to do is take a look at how successful Stanley Johnson has been in his short amount of time on the team. However, as Katz and Kirschner illustrate in the article, he had the worst plus/minus on the Hawks before the trade with “declining defense”. Also, despite averaging a pretty good 37.9 3-point percentage this season on 4.5 attempts per game, he hasn’t shown a propensity to score elsewhere as he’s shooting 42.8% on all 2-point field goals.
However, we all know that a player’s performance can suffer when he’s in a situation he doesn’t want to be in. Given the state of the relationship between Reddish and the Hawks, we might see a bump up in performance once he gets to the Knicks to join his old Duke teammate R.J. Barrett. We might have seen the same if he were able to suit up for the Lakers, but given the fact that all of their first-rounders until 2027 are tied up due to the Anthony Davis deal, I’m guessing the team wanted to restrain themselves from offering a first-rounder to see if they can get something better closer to the deadline.
