It must be painful to be a Knicks fan. Not only has the team not won an NBA championship since 1973 and have been hardly competitive under James Dolan’s ownership, but also the management (James Dolan, more specifically) has continued to sabotage the Knicks future. Their three-team trade of their 11th overall pick last night proves that.
So, for those who don’t know, the Knicks first drafted Ousmane Dieng, 19-year-old, French NBL player, to then trade him mere moments later to the Oklahoma City Thunder for three future, protected 1st Round picks.” Okay, sounds simple enough. Trading one 1st Round pick for three future ones seems reasonable,” one might say. However, if anyone thought that, they’d be dead wrong.
This is one of the worst trades the Knicks could have made at Draft Night. They needed to add either a center, another guard, or a power forward with their 11th pick. Yet, they choose to pass up the opportunity on drafting a guy from one of the deepest drafts in the past five years, to pick up heavily protected and uncertain future picks.
WHY, JAMES DOLAN AND SCOTT PERRY?
Okay, I get the reasoning behind wanting to pick up as many 1st Round Picks as possible. A rebuilding team needs all the future draft help it can get.
The Knicks were also able to get rid of Kemba Walker’s atrocious contract, so that’s a positive too. The only problem with the “rebuilding reasoning” is that the Knicks shouldn’t be thinking about a rebuild. They should be RETOOLING, not rebuilding.
This team was a playoff team only a year ago, and should be looking to get back with newly drafted talent. Also, if they can sign Jalen Brunson to fill up their glaring guard issue, then they really only needed to draft a center or another forward last night.
They already have R.J. Barrett and Julius Randle (if he can get back to his 2020/21 form). With Brunson, Barrett, Randle, and a center/forward they drafted last night, this team should be easily competing for the playoffs this upcoming season.
However, that seems increasingly more unlikely now. It seems James Dolan is intent on keeping the Knicks irrelevant and awful.
By watching yet another Draft Night disaster by James Dolan and his puppets, I understand all Knicks’ fans pain. This team wasted the golden years of Carmelo Anthoy back in the 2010’s, and now seems determined to waste any potential the R.J. Barrett and Julius Randle combination might have produced.
I guess the Knicks will be going all out for Kyrie Irving if he heads to free agency since they refused to draft anyone last night. Though, I’d not be surprised if they missed out on him too. Those three 1st Round picks better pan out into something if James Dolan wants to redeem a sliver of his already damaged reputation.
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