When the Knicks pulled off the trade for Jose Alvarado, the general consensus online was that the trade was a big success. Still, some lingering detractors were concerned that adding another small guard could not only take playing time from second-year true point guard Tyler Kolek but also eat into Deuce McBride’s minutes when he returns from his ankle injury.
It turns out that the reason behind Leon Rose’s frantic, final-day wheeling and dealing to get Alvarado from the Pelicans was not only for
the playoffs, but for the next two months.
According to The Athletic’s Fred Katz, McBride could miss the remainder of the regular season with a sports hernia that requires surgery.
It’s a crushing blow for the Knicks, even with Alvarado in tow. The 25-year-old from West Virginia had taken another leap in his fifth season, averaging career highs across the board as he grows more comfortable in his role as a super sub. In 35 games (14 starts), he’s averaging 12.9 points, 2.8 assists, and 2.6 rebounds on 43.4% from the field and a blistering 42% from deep.
He was averaging a career-high 28 minutes a night and had become more confident with the ball in his hands while embracing his role as the team’s best point-of-attack defender. He, along with Landry Shamet, has been a big part of the Knicks being one of the best three-point shooting teams in basketball.
This injury continues a concerning trend for the young guard, who missed a combined 32 games the last two seasons with (mostly) nagging ankle issues. Those ankle issues popped up again this season, causing him to already miss 15 games before this out-of-nowhere diagnosis. He had missed the previous five games due to “left ankle injury management”, but as time went on, worry started to build.
The sports hernia injury came out of nowhere, and the Knicks will have to consider how to move forward with McBride. Doing some extremely basic research, Rajon Rondo missed five weeks, and Markieff Morris missed about six weeks, both in 2017, with the same injury.
Six weeks from today is March 19. The playoffs begin in just a hair over 10 weeks. Using that timeline, Deuce has plenty of time, but we don’t know the severity or the Knicks’ rehab strategy. If they elect to be conservative, the timeline could very well be closer to the playoffs.
McBride also represented an alternative to the Knicks’ starting five, which, while firmly entrenched as including Josh Hart, could have continued to be experimented with. That’s on ice for now, and you assume that Alvarado slides into a firm bench role for the time being. Kolek should remain in the rotation for now, as the Knicks would likely have Alvarado eat into Jordan Clarkson’s fleeting minutes, if anything.
