The Boston Celtics may hold the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference through the trade deadline, but on February 8, the New York Knicks made serious strides to join the Cs at the top of the conference when they landed Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks for Evan Fournier, Quentin Grimes, Malachi Flynn, Ryan Arcidiacono, and two second-round picks

The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor believes that the maneuvering Leon Rose did at the deadline makes the Knicks one of the day’s big winners.

“The Knicks are big winners,” O’Connor prefaced before saying, “Needed more scoring and Bogdanovic and Burks fit perfectly next to the engines Brunson and Randle. Both can get hot. Both can create if needed at some time or another to give Brunson a breather.
“Crazy how deep New York is now.”

Boston may have made the least noise in the Atlantic Division at the deadline, trading for Xavier Tillman on February 7 and landing Jaden Springer from the Philadelphia 76ers hours before the 3 pm deadline on February 8.

New York seemingly moved the needle the most, but it’s not as though the division’s other teams didn’t sit on their hands.

The Philadelphia 76ers landed sharpshooter Buddy Hield, who figures to be an even better version of former Sixers spot-up shooting specialist Danny Green. Up north, the Toronto Raptors traded for Danny Ainge-era lottery pick Kelly Olynyk and later sent Dennis Schroder to the Brooklyn Nets for Spencer Dinwiddie, who has since been waived.

Now, while the Celtics didn’t aim to make many headlines, landing two defensive-minded potential rotation players like Tillman and Springer does fortify an already offensively-stocked group and gives the team better emergency options than they had before the deadline.

But as stealthy as Stevens was, it was Rose and Co. who undoubtedly won the day.