2020 NBA Draft: Grading the New York Knicks picks and trades

Grading the New York Knicks’ 2020 NBA Draft moves.

After what turned into the longest offseason in team history, the New York Knicks finally got to work in trying to improve their roster during the 2020 NBA Draft on Wednesday.

There are a lot of ways to look at how the night unfolded, from stepping through each individual decision and evaluating whether the Knicks maximized their value based on where they stood at each point in time, to taking a wider lens approach and assessing their performance based on the players they ended up securing.

The Knicks clearly wanted former Dayton power forward Obi Toppin as a key piece to their rebuild. Several reports throughout the day suggested New York was willing to trade up to the 5th pick to make sure they could grab him. Things worked in their favor when he fell to them at eight.

In the back-end of the draft, New York made several deals to put themselves in position to come away with Kentucky sharp-shooter Immanuel Quickley. Rather than using both their late first round pick and early second round pick to select two players, they punted on their second round pick until 2023, which I will describe in more detail later.

How did Leon Rose and company do on their first major night running the Knicks? Let’s go through each draft pick to provide an initial grade, and then examine the second round pick trade.