Knicks Nearly Landed Jazz Legend

The New York Knicks were big players in the landscape of the NBA in the 1990’s as they competed for championships.

They ultimately came just short against Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, Hakeem Olajuwon’s Houston Rockets and David Robinson and Tim Duncan’s San Antonio Spurs, but they nearly tried to shake things up by acquiring one of the other big-time stars in that era: Utah Jazz big man Karl Malone.

“Malone to the Knicks – where he would have been reunited with Scott Layden, then with New York, who had been an assistant with the Jazz for the first few years of Malone’s tenure there and who was widely credited with drafting him – was certainly heavily discussed,” HoopsHype contributor Mark Deeks writes.

The rumors began swirling shortly after the Knicks made it to the 1994 NBA Finals, where Patrick Ewing was considered to be the star for the team. In any potential deal, the Knicks would likely have had to trade Ewing in order to get Malone, which wasn’t something New York was ever strongly considering.

Would trading for Malone in exchange for Ewing have made things better for the Knicks? We can’t be certain, but chances are it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. Jordan was about to return from his retirement, and a Malone-led Knicks squad wouldn’t have made a dent against the Bulls, as evidenced by how the Jazz performed against Chicago in the 1997 and 1998 NBA Finals.

However, Malone was the league MVP in 1999, the same year the Knicks made it to the Finals against the Spurs. That was likely the one title the Knicks could have challenged for out of the runs they were close towards.

In the end, it all worked out the way it did and there’s nothing that can change it. However, it can be fun to reminisce on the past and wonder what could have been.

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