NY Knicks: 3 players NY could have drafted with Hawks 2019 picks

The NY Knicks could have selected Rui Hachimura back in 2019

After careful deliberations, I decided the 3rd best player the Knicks could have drafted would be Rui Hachimura.

I heavily considered Brandon Clarke from Memphis, Keldon Johnson from San Antonio, and a few others but finally settled on Rui because of his upside and defense.

The others also had a bit smaller of a sample size when being compared.

Hachimura was selected with the 9th overall pick back in the 2019 NBA Draft.

The only player on this list that wasn’t selected after both the 8th and 10th picks the Knicks would have gotten in the trade with Atlanta.

An international prospect by way of Tokyo, Rui spent his college days playing for Gonzaga.

A solid forward who has drawn comparisons to Kawhi Leonard, most notably for his defensive prowess.

Rui is a solid scorer from inside the arc but can’t shoot the 3-ball to save his life and as we all know, unless you have Zion or Giannis superpowers, you probably won’t have much success
in today’s modern NBA style of play.

Rui has averaged right around 13.5 points and 6 rebounds per game for the entirety of his career.

Where he hangs his hat is on the defensive side as I mentioned earlier, where he’s a lockdown defender no matter who you stick him on.

Plays high-level defense on the wing and can play down low when called upon.

I believe that of everyone on this list, if Rui were to become a much better shooter, his ceiling is the closest in comparison to RJ’s.

Still though, even if the Knicks had both Rui and for example Tyler Herro on the squad instead of RJ, RJ is just our guy and they’re far better off with The Maple Mamba for their future.