Knicks Rumors Roundup: Signing Kevin Love, Trading Shumpert to Denver, and More

Six games into the 2013-14 season, the New York Knicks are staring at a disappointing 2-4 record. When a team expected to make noise in the playoffs gets off to such a disappointing start, the rumors start swirling, and we're here to clear through the speculation and determine if any of these rumors hold any weight. There have been some particularly juicy rumors thrown around this week, with moves for Kevin Love mentioned and a possible Iman Shumpert trade floated - are any of these whispers legit?

Making a move for Kevin Love

Kevin Love has been the best player in the league so far this season. Okay, so Minnesota has only played eight games - fair enough - but no one can deny that Love has been an absolute monster. No one thinks Love has any intention of staying in Minnesota for the rest of his career, and the Knicks would be wise to start courting Love long before he hits free agency in the summer of 2015.

It sounds like they're already planning out how to make their move, and we've heard from reliable sources that they plan to model their pursuit of Love after how the Houston Rockets persuaded Dwight Howard to join the team this summer. The Knicks will finally have the cap room to offer him a max deal, and they'll be on the hunt for other pieces they can find to supplement his skill-set.

Trading Iman Shumpert to Denver for Kenneth Faried

Nope. Nope nope nope. This has some basis in fact - we can report that the Knicks did offer Shumpert for Faried, straight up - but the Nuggets had absolutely zero interest in making this happen. While you might hear some unsubstantiated claims that this trade is in the works, it's absolutely, unequivocally not happening. The Nuggets would need a LOT more than Shump to consider giving up Faried, and to be honest, we're surprised the Knicks didn't get laughed off the phone.

From the eminently reliable Adrian Wojnarowski:

Trading Iman Shumpert to Someone Else

The Knicks are aggressively shopping Shump, and even though Denver shot them down, they're still looking to get front-court help as soon as they can. Omer Asik would certainly fit the Knicks' criteria, but the Rockets already have a surplus of players in Shumpert's position, and he isn't an asset they'd have any use for. A more intriguing possibility we've heard mentioned would be a trade with the Phoenix Suns. The Suns have a surplus of big men, but are in dire need of backcourt depth. Both Miles Plumlee and Markieff Morris are possibilities, although nothing has gone beyond informal, exploratory conversations just yet.

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