While the Knicks have had a pretty mellow week (if you know anything about the Knicks you will understand that joke), not much news has come up. We are still losing, no surprise there. Still not sure what is going on at the point guard position, still not a surprise. But most importantly, Joakim Noah is still being Joakim Noah and it is being assumed that he is not going to ever return to the team. Doesn’t make much sense judging that he signed one of those contract things that I am pretty sure requires you to at least a practice or two in order to collect your 80 million dollar check but I guess not. When no one likes you or wants you there I guess that’s the loophole. Anyways, no more ranting about Joakim Noah (feel free to look at any of my other posts because they are littered with Joakim Noah rants). In this post we will optimistically be looking ahead to the draft where the Knicks will likely have a top ten pick that will be huge for the team to be able to add some more young talent to this already young team.
This appears to be a strong draft class, especially near the top of the draft. For this blog, I will be using a mock draft from NBADraft.net. While NBA mock drafts are so unpredictable especially at this point in the season, it is always fun to speculate and look ahead because right now watching the team lose really isn’t that much fun… So right now it is projected that we get the 9th overall pick in the draft, which is of course a complete guess due to the remaining games left to be played as well as the lottery system in the NBA, as well as the 38th and 44th overall picks which are both in the second round of the draft. With the 9th pick, NBADraft.net has us taking the sophomore point guard out of the University of Alabama, Collin Sexton. Honestly I don’t know much about besides that he was one of the top high school recruits this past year and that he was one of the three players that Alabama had left on their team in a game earlier in the season versus Minnesota. During the game Alabama’s bench started a brawl and nearly their whole team was ejected from the game except for Sexton and two other players so they were forced to play 3 vs 5 with no backups for over half of the game and Alabama only lost by six points that game where Sexton put up 40 points. Quite a spectacular performance as it takes a special kind of player to go out there with the intention of winning the game when you are playing with only 3 players. While I think Sexton is a great player, I do not think he would be the correct fit for us to take him at the 9th selection. We currently have two young stud point guards that are quickly developing their skills and while they do not look great right now, I am confident that they can be the future of this team (not like we are trying to win right now anyways). I think someone like Miles Bridges out of Michigan State would be really good for us. An explosive small forward that plays well on both ends of the court is what we really need.
With our first second round selection, this mock draft has us taking Keita Bates-Diop who is right now one of the best players in the Big Ten and is contention for player of the year in the nation. I would love this selection but I really don’t see this guy falling out of the first round. Realistically I could see us taking Penn State’s beloved Tony Carr at this spot in the draft to add another role player to the team who can really add a boost off of the bench. Although I would much rather have Tony Carr stay at PSU for two more years. My heart can’t handle losing Saquon and Tony in the same year… With our other second round pick this mock draft has us taking Alonzo Trier, a shooting guard out of the University of Arizona. This pick makes sense to me as he could really help us with some bench scoring but this late in the draft you just have to shoot your shot up on a prospect and hope he develops his game at this level.
