The New York Knicks are one of the NBA’s oldest franchises, with a long history of making draft picks. Many of those players have gone on to Hall of Fame careers, names like Patrick Ewing, Walt “Clyde” Frazier, and Willis Reed, all of whom were drafted by the Knicks.
There is an ugly underbelly to drafting, however, and one that the Knicks have also been a part of. Sometimes when you draft a player they turn into an All-Star; other times they completely flame out and give your franchise absolutely nothing. The Knicks have a lot of those stories throughout their history.
New York Knicks all-time draft bust starting 5
Digging into the long list of Knicks draft busts is an arduous task; the list is, unfortunately, extremely long. Every team has a list of draft disappointments, especially if they have been around as long as the Knicks, but few have been as good at whiffing in the draft as the Knickerbockers.
Even so, we have waded in so that you do not have to, and come away with the definitive “New York Knicks all-time draft bust starting 5.” These five players highlight multiple eras of draft failures for the Knicks, taking into account the pick used (higher picks being more painful to waste), which players came behind, and just how little they contributed to both the Knicks and the NBA.
With apologies to Renaldo Balkman, Mike Sweetney, Frederic Weis, Jerrod Mustaf, and Gene Short, here is the all-time draft bust starting 5.
New York Knicks all-time draft bust starting point guard: Frank Ntilikina
Our list starts close to the present day, as the Knicks had an incredible two-year run of draft failures within the past decade. That starts with Frank Ntilikina, a 6’4″ point guard drafted eighth overall in the 2017 NBA Draft out of France.
The upside was supposed to be immense with Ntilikina, who brought incredible defensive length and instincts at the point guard position. When you added in how he would bully defenders driving to the rim and be unstoppable in the mid-range, you understand why the Knicks bought it.
The problem is that Ntilikina never realized that offensive upside…any of it, really. He is a career 32 percent shooter from three-point range and just 37 percent from the field. He couldn’t create offense off of the dribble, he couldn’t score, and he couldn’t shoot; his passing never really came around either, making him a massive problem in every facet of offensive basketball.
Ntilikina stuck around the Knicks for four seasons because of his defense, which was every bit as good as advertised, but at some point, you have to play both sides of the court.
The Knicks took Ntilikina eighth overall, and while the players directly after him were busts in their own rights (Dennis Smith Jr. and Zach Collins), Donovan Mitchell and Bam Adebayo went 13th and 14th, and either would have transformed the Knicks franchise.
New York Knicks all-time draft bust starting shooting guard: Kevin Knox
At this point in our draft bust starting five we have to recognize that the Knicks have not whiffed on a lot of guard prospects with high picks; when they have a high pick they almost always draft a frontcourt player, and it oh-so-often goes terribly wrong. We, therefore, slide Kevin Knox into our starting shooting guard spot to highlight the deep reserve of draft busts at the forward positions.
The player Knox was supposed to be would be right at home as a shooting guard, anyway. One year after taking Frank Ntilikina they were back in the top 10 in the 2018 Draft and took Kentucky forward Kevin Knox II with the ninth pick of the draft.
Knox was a highly-recruited player who had a bad freshman season, then somehow shot up draft boards in the pre-draft process, skyrocketing all the way to the Knicks at nine. The profile on Knox made sense for a top pick; Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer described him as “a raw forward with the requisite athletic traits to be a go-to scorer if he puts it all together.”
Narrator: he did not put it all together.
Knox got plenty of run on a bad Knicks team in 2018-19 and averaged 12.8 points on abysmal efficiency as a rookie. It would only go downhill from there, as his shot never developed and his finishing inside melted into tentative misses. He never developed as a passer and on defense his skinny frame and poor instincts combined for the worst of both worlds, a tweener not strong enough to defend forwards nor quick enough to guard wings.
Knox is still hanging around the league, bouncing around four teams in two years after the Knicks dumped him on the Atlanta Hawks. Every so often he has a game or two that flashes that upside and makes NBA GMs start drooling, but a player has to find a way to be usable every game, and that’s something Knox has never discovered.
Who was the player taken directly after Kevin Knox? Mikal Bridges, who is now one of the league’s best two-way wings. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander went 11th. Could you imagine the Knicks with either of those players? If they had come out of the 2017 and 2018 drafts with Donovan Mitchell and Mikal Bridges instead of Frank Ntilikina and Kevin Knox…well, it certainly would have been a very different half-decade for the Knicks.
New York Knicks all-time draft bust starting small forward: Paul Hogue
From the last decade, we leap back 60 years to the 1962 NBA Draft. The New York Knicks are mired in an impressively bad run of ineptitude, finishing last in their division for 11 out of 12 seasons from the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s. Head coach Eddie Donovan led the Knicks to a 29-51 record in 1961-62, with Richie Guerin averaging 29.5 points per game to lead the way.
Meanwhile, Paul Hogue was the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Final Four in 1962, leading the Cincinnati Bearcats to their second consecutive NCAA title after Oscar Robertson graduated and left for the NBA. The Knicks, armed with the second overall pick, were taking what seemed like a surefire pick.
As a rookie Hogue erupted onto the scene, averaging…7.7 points per game. By his second season, he averaged only 3.2 points per game in six appearances before he was traded to the Baltimore Bullets, playing another nine games before his career ended with a whimper.
Hogue’s career as the second overall pick was recently ranked the third-worst among all second picks by The Athletic (subscription required). It was so bad that we smushed the 6’9″ big in at small forward; if it’s a lineup of draft busts, who says it has to be well-balanced? The most painful part of drafting Hogue is that John Havlicek was sitting there on the board and would have helped to transform the franchise years before Willis Reed and Walt Frazier did.
New York Knicks all-time draft bust starting power forward: Jordan Hill
In the 2009 NBA Draft, the New York Knicks were picking eighth and had their eyes set on Davidson guard Stephen Curry. His game, based on elite shooting from outside, was sure to be a perfect fit to play in basketball’s best arena. Other teams knew the Knicks were locked in on Curry, prompting them to discuss potential trade-up scenarios to get ahead of the Knicks.
Then the Golden State Warriors elected not to trade the pick, pivoting at the last moment and taking Curry with the seventh pick. Suddenly, the Knicks were scrambling to find a second option. They ultimately went with Arizona big Jordan Hill, a decision that will live on in infamy in Knicks lore.
Hill was supposed to be a hyper-athletic power forward who could score in bunches. Instead, he averaged just 4.0 points per game as a rookie before the Knicks shipped him off to Houston. His career never materialized after that, with stops on five total teams never yielding more than a minor role.
Meanwhile, Curry has put together one of the top 15 careers in NBA history, adding insult to injury. There were plenty of talented players available to be chosen when Curry went off the board, but the Knicks took Jordan Hill instead. DeMar DeRozan went ninth to the Toronto Raptors, Jrue Holiday went a few picks later, and even solid players like Jeff Teague, Darren Collison, and Taj Gibson were available. Instead, the Knicks went with Hill, leading to a whole lot of nothing.
New York Knicks all-time draft bust starting center: Tom Riker
In 1972 the New York Knicks were riding high, in the midst of the best run of basketball in the history of the franchise. After two trips to the NBA Finals and one title, the Knicks would win a second championship the following season. The 1972 NBA Draft afforded a chance to inject some youth into the squad as they tried to continue competing.
The opportunity was certainly available to them. They had the eighth pick, and future stars Paul Westphal, Ralph Sampson, and Julius Erving would go from 10-12 in the draft. Instead of landing a star, however, they picked a center out of South Carolina named Tom Riker to be the heir apparent to Willis Reed.
He was the heir to nothing but a spot on the bench, however, as Riker reportedly showed up to training camp overweight and was never able to regain his college production. The New York native played in 82 games over three seasons with the Knicks, averaging just 2.7 points and 1.7 rebounds per game. Given who was available when the Knicks picked, it was one of the worst draft decisions in franchise history.
Unfortunately for the Knicks, you could build an entire second team of horrifying draft busts they wasted top picks on. The past few years have landed some gems, and certainly throughout history that has been the case, but there have been some shocking lows as well.
Who will be the New York Knicks’ best player in 2 years?
The New York Knicks are playing well, but they still need to find their superstar. Who will be the team's best player in 2 years?