New York Knicks: The Road to Respectability
By Brad Wier
2020 Draft: Knicks Select Obi Toppin and Immanuel Quickley
To the contrary of Steve Mills, Immanuel Quickley is good.
Like really good.
The Knicks walked away from the 2020 draft with Obi Toppin out of Dayton and Immanuel Quickley from Kentucky with the 8th and 25th picks respectively. While the jury is out on Toppin, the league has taken notice of the sophomore out of UK. Whether it be with what is already become his signature floater, his step-back threes, clutch 4th quarter performances, or being recognized by stars around the league; it’s evident that the Knicks found themselves an absolute gem in Quickley.
With the success of Quickley, Obi Toppin’s slow start has been put on the back burner of the news cycle and he hasn’t received the type of backlash from the media and fanbase he would if Quickley wasn’t on the team. To be honest you have to feel for the kid. He was projected as an NBA-ready offensive talent that would be a mirror of John Collins and was being compared to Amare Stoudemire in pre-draft analyses.
He was drafted as the future replacement of Julius Randle, and that’s looking less and less likely that that will ever happen. Obi has only played more than 20 minutes twice this season and hasn’t had enough run to ever get in a rhythm or show what he could do with significant minutes.
While Toppin is certainly not a lost cause, he has only 370 career minutes played to this point and it feels like Julius Randle plays more than that on a nightly basis, there need to be signs of improvement on his end. He does need to show strides justifying why he was considered a steal the 8th overall in the draft and was universally regarded as a homerun pick by the Knicks. Even if he doesn’t end up the cornerstone piece the team envisioned when he was drafted, with the Knicks hitting on Quickley, this draft will be looked at as a success regardless of how Obi Toppin turns out.