Draft Day

I'm sensing that this will be the calm before the FA storm for the Knicks. D'Antoni said on the radio yesterday that he's been more focused on the FA recruiting than on the draft, though he likes some guys. As it stands right now, the Knicks have picks 38 and 39 in the second round and nothing else. They may buy a first if a player they like is available, but otherwise, it looks like they'll make picks 38 and 39 and there'll be no fireworks.

I hope they take players instead of athletes. I talked about his a bit in the draft article, but teams very often take athletes instead of players feeling that they can teach them to be players later on. That's just a collosal waste of picks and time. It is far better for teams to establish athetic minimums and find productive players who meet them, than it is to find the best athlete and assume you can teach him to play your sport. We see this in basketball all the time, with teams taking big bodied leapers and believing they can turn them into players. Or taking bigs over smalls regardless of skill level. We saw this microcosmically when Portland, who had previously taken Sam Bowie, a quality big who was hurt all the time, over Michael Jordan, did it again by taking Greg Oden over Kevin Durant. We're seeing how that's working out.

But every year we see NFL teams that go by 40 times, MLB teams that pick pitchers who throw hard, but don't throw strikes, or have a pretty swing but don't get on base, and NHL teams who pick fast or "rugged" forwards who never make a mark on the scoring sheet.


One of the funniest things that people used to say about Brett Hull and Reggie Miller was "all they do is score!" Really? Well, all they keep is SCORE. Draft productive players who can be developed into more productive pros, not players who already look like pros but don't yet know how to play or fill up a score sheet.


Go Knicks!