Knicks Draft

Hey, it's one of those years when the Knicks have a first round pick!!!   Last time was two years ago, when they took the now ascendant Iman Shumpert.    It looks like they're sending him to the summer league to practice playing the point.    With him, it will be a matter of decision making, because he absolutely has the AA to play the point, and it was proven in pre-draft testing two years ago.   Anyway, it will give us a pretty good reason to watch the Summer League.

Over the years, all four of the teams we talk about here have gone through periods of lousy drafting.  But right now, the Giants, Yankees and Rangers have all been applying a good deal of intelligence  to their pick making.   The Knicks have been more hit or miss.  For every Shump, there's been a Jordan Hill.  And they've basically been pretty bad drafters for 30 or more years.  

The NBA draft itself is based on weird calculus.   Teams try to balance projectable athletic ability against knowing how to play.   The temptation to pick athletes is too strong for some teams, and does that not only lead to having Tyrus Thomas's getting traded every year, it creates situations where smart teams like the Spurs to continually find pieces that fit.  Although they did once seem to tank games in order to be able to draft Tim Duncan.  And of course, that kind of chicanery is about par for the NBA draft, that literally be more on the up and up if the Nixon Administration was running it.  

I'm not kidding.  Back in the day, the reason the Celtics were able to draft Bill Russell was because they owner of the Celts owned the Ice Capades and gave the owner of the team ahead of him, I think it was Buffalo or St. Louis, a deal on the Ice show for his arena if he'd let the Celts have Russell.   And then there have been all the rumors about fixed lotteries.   The NHL has seemed a little slippery about their lotteries, too, and they only hired Bettman because he had been David Stern's right hand man.  

But I digress.   So far the Knicks only have the #24 pick and no seconds.    They can't buy seconds on draft night because of the money rules, but they can make deals to buy the selected players once the league year reboots on July 1 or 2.     They're obviously looking for a point guard or a big, and there's been talk of them trading up.

I'm not sure what they'd be able to use to trade up.  The rights to Jerome Jordan?  But hopefully they have a guy they love and can get to.

Back in the Walsh days, they would have guys like Steph Curry and Kevin Love who they loved and just couldn't get to.   That's how hey ended up with Jordan Hill.   Though Danilo Gallinari was a good pick.  In the Zeke days, they'd try to go to whatever lengths they had to to mock the mock drafts with their picks.  That's how they got Renaldo B!

In any event, they need to get someone, cause they are old and wheezed to the finish this year.   Go Knicks?