2022 NBA Draft Lottery: What are the Knicks’ chances of landing in the top 4?
By Adam Kester
The 2022 NBA Draft Lottery is just around the corner and the New York Knicks are hoping to make a jump in the draft order.
After not partaking in last year’s lottery, the Knicks will be 1 of 14 teams participating in this year’s selections. This will be the team’s eighth draft lottery in the last nine seasons.
What are the New York Knicks’ odds in the 2022 NBA Draft Lottery?
The Knicks will enter the draft lottery with the 11th-best odds at the first overall pick. New York was fluttering around the outskirts of the playoff picture all year long, only to be definitively eliminated in the last few weeks of the regular season.
The team has enlisted senior executive William “World Wide” Wesley to represent them at the ceremony. Knicks fans clearly shouldn’t go into the draft lottery overly optimistic — we have been burned too many times before.
New York has been a part of 18 NBA draft lotteries and the organization’s only moved up in positioning once, which happened in 1985 when the team landed Patrick Ewing with the first overall pick.
Here’s how things could shake out for the Knicks this time around: New York’s unlikely to fall to 13th or 14th (just a 0.4% chance) but has a 12.6% chance to fall one spot to 12th. The Knicks have a 77.6% chance of landing the 11th pick, so that should be the expectation.
However… New York actually cannot land anywhere between picks 5-10. Instead, the rest of its odds fall into the top 4. So if the Knicks were to get past pick 11, they’d be in the top 4.
The odds on those picks are as follows: A 2.8% chance at pick No. 4, a 2.4% chance at pick No. 3, a 2.2% chance at pick No. 2, and a 2% chance at pick No. 1. I prefer to look at it as a 9.4% chance of landing in the top 4.
The odds are against them, but crazier things have happened than a 9.4% chance. In this particular draft, there seems to be a consensus top-4 prospect list, so the draft will really start with the No. 5 pick. Those prospects include Chet Holmgren, Paolo Banchero, Jaden Ivey, and Jabari Smith Jr.
If New York lands at No. 4, it’d have a leftover pick. If the Knicks somehow land at the top, they’ll have an interesting decision to make. Ivey would seem like the best positional fit given he is a guard. But if New York has someone like Smith or Banchero higher on their board, the team could be inclined to go with one of them.
Either way, there’s a 9.4% chance we’ll be having discussions around those four players. Let the games begin.
