Leon Rose understood what Knicks needed to become a bigger threat — and made it happen

The Knicks are better as you read this than they were at this time yesterday, or last week, or last month. That is the measure of a general manager at the trade deadline, and that is what Leon Rose did as the hours ticked away toward 3 o’clock Thursday afternoon. 

But there’s more to that, too, more than Rose merely flipping a couple of second-round picks, three little-used players and Quentin Grimes — who’d lately fallen out of favor — in order to bring Tom Thibodeau favorite Alec Burks back into the fold, in order to bring Bojan Bogdanovic and his bottomless shooting range to the Garden. Rose made the Knicks a bolder threat this season (when healthy) without sacrificing the possibility of a big swing next summer. He makes this deal without surrendering any of his stockpile of first-round picks, and acquired two expiring contracts in the bargain. 

The Knicks now have a 10-man rotation, if they choose to go that deep, that is better than any they’ve had in years — when all of those players are available, of course. But that’s also something that Rose tried to solve Thursday. The extraordinary run that the Knicks had gone on from New Year’s Day heading into Thursday’s 122-108 loss to the Mavericks at Madison Square Garden had allowed them to begin to think of themselves in different terms across the rest of this year. They are toe-to-toe with the Bucks. They are just behind the Cavs. It’s been a remarkable run from fighting for the sixth seed to dreaming about the second. 

And this deadline-day bonanza not only will help the Knicks come spring, when presumably all their missing parts return, it helps them right now, at a time when they are still weeks away from getting Julius Randle back, on a day when they learned they’re at least a month away from getting OG Anunoby back, on a day when Jalen Brunson reported to work in civilian clothes. Brunson’s absence is expected to be short term, but even at that it’s an eyesore for the Knicks to see him on the bench and not in the floor. 

And the hard truth about daily life across the long NBA season is this: As quickly as the Knicks managed to redefine their terms of engagement this season with that now 16-4 push since New Year’s Day, it can go the other way just as quickly. This four-game bloc facing the Knicks before the All-Star break was going to be challenging enough, and that was before the Knicks reported for work Thursday night against Dallas with only eight available players. 

Before they get to hit the pause button, the Knicks host Indiana on Saturday night then go on a two-game road trip through Houston and Orlando that will serve as the immediate period of integration and adjustment for the new guys, and is one they have to try and survive somehow without forfeiting their hard-earned place in the standings.