NY Knicks: 3 players the Knicks could have drafted in 2021 NBA Draft

Should the NY Knicks have selected Kai Jones in the 2021 NBA Draft?

Kai Jones is a player I will follow for the rest of his career because he was selected with OUR 19th overall pick.

That trade with Charlotte will be ingrained in my head for years because this draft in particular is the first one I was forced to be heavily invested in due to my position here with Daily Knicks.

All the build-up for months, hundreds of articles written, read, and edited, all for the Knicks to just trade that pick out of the draft entirely.

For the Knicks to be in need of a center and to pass on a talent like Kai Jones left me a bit puzzled.

Him opening up his NBA career with a monstrous slam like the one seen below added insult to injury.

So far, his Summer League stats aren’t eye-popping, but I don’t think anyone expected them to be.

He fits the mold of what Thibs likes in his centers as a tall, athletic, rim-runner who rebounds well.

So far he’s averaging 8 points and 7.3 rebounds per game.

With the Knicks committing roughly $30 million over 3 seasons to Nerlens Noel, perhaps the front office could have drafted Jones and shortly thereafter found a suitable trade partner to move Mitchell Robinson to.

Jones is set to make $2.7 million this season on a rookie scale compared to Robinson’s $1.8 million…but Robinson is due for a big payday next year.

Since it seems almost inevitable that either Noel or Robinson will be traded at some point in the near future, why not avoid all of that and just develop a guy like Kai Jones behind one of them?

Puzzling move to say the least.