Knicks Draft Strategy: Find the outliers in the first round
By Ken Tavarez
A strategy for the New York Knicks to have success in the upcoming NBA Draft.
As the NBA draft is quickly approaching, the New York Knicks are at a point were they are finalizing their player rankings. While many experts and fans can debate whom the team should take, one thing has become abundantly clear, this draft class doesn’t have a bona fide star.
The top two prospects in this draft, Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball, would be ranked closer to 5th than 1st in a good draft class. So what are the Knicks to do with the 8th and 27th pick in what is considered a weak draft?
Draft Strategies
There are several approaches when it comes to drafting players. There is drafting for need versus drafting the best player available. For the Knicks, the answer to this question is easy. They are in talent acquisition mode so they need to draft the best player available.
However, the next question for a team that is not selecting at the top of the draft is more difficult to answer. Draft the player with the highest floor or with the highest ceiling?
In this scenario, I usually recommend going with the player with the highest floor because it’s a safer pick. However, when you consider the Knicks’ roster, and talent pool in this draft, it makes sense for them to try and hit a home run, go for higher ceiling.
But how does a team picking 8th find a star?
As discussed in “it’s time to finally rebuild the right way,” NBA draft history shows most stars are drafted within the top three picks. So finding a star with the 8th pick in a weak draft seems very unlikely. However, we have seen it happen. Below is a list of stars drafted after the 8th pick in the last 10 drafts:
2010 – Paul George 10th
2011 – Kawhi Leonard 15th, Jimmy Butler 30th
2013 – Giannis Antetokounmpo, 15th, CJ McCollum 10th, Rudy Gobert 27th
2015 – Devin Booker 13th
2016 – Pascal Siakam 27th
2017 – Donovan Mitchell 13th, Bam Adebayo 14th
It doesn’t happen every year, but there have been 10 All-Star caliber players drafted after the 8th pick in the last ten drafts. When you look at the list, you will notice that 7 out of the 10 were athletic outliers. They were bigger and stronger than the typical player for their position. The reason they weren’t drafted higher was because they were raw and needed time to develop.
While there are players that seem to go higher in the draft than their skill level warrants because of their physical attributes, most don’t make it because of their mental make-up. The level of self-motivation and grit necessary to survive in the ultra-competitive NBA ecosystem has to be all-consuming. So the key to finding that diamond in the rough is identifying the player with the combination of athletic ability and grit. Below is the list of players from this draft that fit this profile.
2020 Draft Outliners
- Isaac Okoro – attribute – strength
- Patrick Williams – attribute – strength
- Kira Lewis Jr. – attribute – speed
- Aleksej Pokusevski – attribute – size
The three of the four players on this list could be dropped on an NBA court today and would be able to hold their own due to their athletic gifts. Pokusevski (Poku) is the only one that is not ready to play extended minutes for an entire season because of his weight. He is 7’0″, but only weighs 205 pounds. However, he is the most intriguing.
There is one other outliner athlete in this class that I didn’t include, and that is Anthony Edwards. There is concern about his focus and motor as he seemed to drift in many of his games at Georgia.
That doesn’t align with the brand of basketball Coach Thibodeau is trying to implement. Edwards would benefit more from playing on a team with great veteran players that could mentor him. Unfortunately, the Knicks can not provide that.
Patrick Williams
Patrick Williams is not as polished as Okoro, but is just as strong, and longer. He also comes from a program that embodies the values and attitude that Coach Thibodeau wants to instill in the Knicks.
One the biggest issues he had at Florida State was putting on too much muscle too quickly. Despite being a power player, he has shown enough for scouts to believe he can develop into a consistent outside shooter. Having an athletically gifted big man that can defend the best frontcourt players in the game is a requirement if you want to compete. LeBron James, Giannis and Zion can all physically dominate most players in the NBA. Williams has the ability to lock them up if he harnesses his raw ability.
Kira Lewis Jr.
Most people don’t view Lewis as an athletic outliner because of his size—he only weighs 165 pounds on a 6’3″ frame. But if you compare him to C.J. McCollum, one of the star players listed above, drafted 10th in 2013, you start to view him a little differently.
McCollum was also 6’3″ and 165 pounds when he came out of college. He has gained 25 pounds since then and now weighs 190 pounds. Lewis’s speed and explosiveness is exactly what the Knicks need. He is a blur on the court, similar to John Wall, but with a better jump shot. He might be a reach with the 8th pick as he projected to be a mid-to-late first round pick, but the Knicks should consider trading back for him, especially if they can improve their second first round pick (27th) to pair him with another draft outliner.
Aleksej Pokusevski (Poku)
The last outlier on our list is the most intriguing one, especially for Knick fans that are looking for a replacement for the unicorn they lost.
Poku looks like a center, but plays like guard, and better yet, a fearless one. He is sort of a mystery man because he has been playing overseas. Since he played in Greece, the Serbian is compared to another outliner, Giannis Antetokounmpo (the Greek Freak).
Many scouts consider him to be just as good as Giannis was at the same age. While Poku is not a player you can plug into the lineup right away, it makes sense to trade up from the 27th pick to the middle of the first round to select him.
Next. Knicks need to prey on the weak. dark
Making him your second, first round pick and stashing him in Westchester for a year makes sense. You can see a team with several first round picks like Boston, OKC and Minnesota taking a chance on him. So the Knicks should get ahead of them to take the worth wild gamble on the next possible unicorn.