Knicks' playoff collapse just handed Mavericks the perfect Grimes replacement

The Dallas Mavericks have been eagerly awaiting the 2025 NBA Draft ever since May 12, as Dallas' season was riddled with inconsistency due to the Luka Doncic trade, as well as the number of injuries the team was dealing with. After winning the No. 1 overall pick in this year's draft, the Mavericks will undoubtedly select consensus No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg in what is a move that will restore hope to a fanbase that desperately needs some.

The Mavericks are vying to be as competitive as possible in a wild Western Conference next season, so while Flagg will assume a decent chunk of responsibility, he'll have many other options around him to help lessen the burden of the expectations of being the No. 1 pick. Perhaps the most prominent of these options, as well as Dallas' primary source of shot creation when healthy, is Kyrie Irving, but Irving is projected to miss a decent chunk of next season, and Dallas' only two other current guards on their roster are Brandon Williams and Jaden Hardy.

Dallas is inevitably expected to look for guard help this summer, and while there are a ton of different names they could look at to fill this vacancy whether via trade or free agency, New York Knicks guard Miles McBride is an intriguing name to monitor considering how his season ended with New York in their Eastern Conference Finals loss to the Indiana Pacers.

Miles McBride would be the perfect Grimes replacement in Dallas

While McBride averaged 18.9 minutes per game throughout this postseason for the Knicks, his spot in the rotation was shaky at times, and he played 15 minutes or less in three of the Knicks' games versus the Pacers, including only playing 11 minutes in Game 6 of the series. Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau is notorious for keeping a tight rotation, so McBride could potentially become a trade candidate this offseason, considering that his spot in the rotation diminished throughout the playoffs, and the Knicks will already have an expensive payroll next season.

Before he was traded to the Detroit Pistons and then later to the Mavericks, Quentin Grimes was in a very similar type of situation with the Knicks as McBride currently is, and McBride mirrors a lot of Grimes' playstyle, ironically enough. While McBride is 6-foot-2 and slightly smaller than Grimes, he's a sturdy guard with a solid wingspan, making him a great point-of-attack defender just like Grimes is.

McBride is only 24 years old and has shown flashes of being efficient enough as a three-level scorer to be more of a fill-in starter or sixth-man type of player as his career progresses, and he averaged a career high 2.9 assists per game this past season as well. The Mavericks would be banking on McBride taking a bit of a leap if he was going to be the sole replacement valve for Irving until he returns from injury, but they'd probably be smart to find a way to add one more guard into their rotation before the season starts even if they traded for McBride given he isn't the most proven guard on the trade market currently.

However, this shouldn't discount that McBride could pan out a starting level player for a long time in his career given is age and ability to get better every season since he's been in the league, and he'd be on a bargain deal considering he's only owed about $8.2 million on the next two seasons of his current deal.

McBride could help Nico Harrison make amends for his decision to trade Grimes for Caleb Martin if the Knicks are actively shopping him this summer and Dallas were able to pounce on the opportunity, as McBride has the potential to be the same type of gritty two-way combo guard that can play stop-gap point guard minutes just like Grimes did for the Philadelphia 76ers this past season.