This trade isn't as exciting as others and you'd expect the Knicks (and the Suns) to make more moves after this, but a change of scenery could benefit both centers. Both Mitch and Ayton have been fairly vocal about their respective situations and each bring different strengths to each of their new teams.

Knicks: Mitch has had a great year, despite some struggles in the second round against Bam but has continually posted on IG and Twitter about his displeasure with being underutilized on offense. The Knicks swap him for Ayton, who isn't as good as Mitch on the defensive end but still mainly fits with Thibs philosophy of a rim protector. However what Ayton does do much better than Mitch is score. He's not out there making 3s but he can actually make score in ways other than a dunk. As we saw in the Heat series, there were some serious spacing issues that the Knicks ran into. He doesn't solve those but this does get Fournier's contract off the books and does at least add someone who doesn't have to be by the rim to score.

Suns: Ayton was also dissatisfied with his time on the Suns and the fans seem to feel the same. The big question is how does the new front office and incoming coach feel about Ayton? This trade sees them add a FRP (albeit a protected one) along with a younger and more defensively sound center in Mitch and a 3 point shooter in Fournier. Fournier's contract is essentially expiring with his team option for 24-25 so he could at least be a bench player next year and be off the books the next year. There might need to be one more FRP attached but with Ayton's value fairly low and him arguably being overpaid I tried to split the difference but I could see it going either way.

Thoughts?