New York Knicks: Kevin Knox fights back at ‘tanking’ notions

The New York Knicks are historically bad, but Kevin Knox is fighting notions of this team “tanking” for a higher draft pick and has a message for everyone who thinks so.

The New York Knicks are 10-46 and own the NBA’s worst record. Monday night, they lost a franchise record 17th consecutive game, so, yes, this team is at historic proportions, none of which they want part of.

No one expected the Knicks to tease a playoff spot this season when president Steve Mills called it a “developmental” year. It signaled a direction towards growth and youth and while the team stuck to that, the win-loss record has plummeted by the game as a result.

With that, the idea of “tanking” has accompanied it. The Knicks will probably own a top pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, and with the season lost, the front office made decisions around the trade deadline to move forward with players of the future and discard some of whom won’t stick.

However, don’t tell that to Kevin Knox, who spoke against this notion of intentionally losing, per the New York Post. He mostly aimed these comments towards the fans:

"“Yeah, a lot of fans, they always say some dumb stuff,’’ Knox said at the morning shootaround at Quicken Loans Arena. “You see it all the time with the tanking and want us to lose, stuff like that. It’s kind of stupid. They’re not really true New Yorkers. Real Knicks fans know that we’re trying to just take this year to just develop us young guys and then next year hopefully make a push.”"

Knox has awareness of the fans. In this social media age, the entire Knicks roster probably realizes it, too, especially with the prospect of Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett or Ja Morant ahead. These players, most notably Williamson, can reshape this franchise and put it on solid ground.

The Kentucky product played into the “developmental” idea in those comments, and that’s fine. For the roster in place, at this point, it’s all they can focus on. Why care about the Knicks’ draft standing if their own future isn’t guaranteed?

"“Every night we’re just going to go out and just play hard. We’re going to compete at the highest level,” Knox said. “We might make some mistakes towards the end of the game which costs us the games. We’re in a lot of close games with a lot of great teams, playoff teams. That just shows you how close we are from winning those games."

“Tanking” might never sit well with Knox and others, and maybe it was never intentional, but playing a group of young, inexperienced players led to this result. Sidelining veterans complemented it.

Now, the New York Knicks have 26 games to waddle through before “tanking” is thrown out and the draft finally arrives. That’s when this organization can rescue itself from a season of endless losing and work towards greater things in 2019-20.