The New York Knicks had no draft picks heading into the 2023 NBA Draft, but they remained a team to watch as rumors swirled about them either trading for a star or trading into the draft. Instead, they did nothing, watching the draft go by without making a single move.
After trading away multiple picks in the 2022 NBA Draft to acquire future picks and clear cap room to sign Jalen Brunson, the Knicks have only made one draft pick in the last two years when they took Trevor Keels with the 42nd pick of the 2022 draft.
For a team with a young core of players under 25 years old being inactive in two straight drafts is certainly a questionable strategy. Instead of adding young talent to grow alongside players like Brunson, Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, Quentin Grimes, and Mitchell Robinson, the Knicks seem content to see what free agency holds for them or if they can swing a trade for a star, like Paul George.
According to SNY’s Ian Begley, the Knicks did make contact with one team to discuss trading into the first round of the draft, but, obviously, nothing came of it.
The inactivity was certainly not due to a lack of assets. With potentially seven first-round picks in the next three years, the Knicks had the ammunition to move up in the draft and select a player they liked.
Perhaps even Villanova forward Cam Whitmore, who was projected as a top-five pick and fell all the way to the Houston Rockets at 20. Whitmore’s size and shooting ability on the wing would have been exactly what the Knicks needed in their rotation. Despite reported concerns about Whitmore’s knee, both the player and the Rockets claim there were no issues in his pre-draft physical.
The Knicks have also had success in recent years with second-round picks like Miles McBride, Mitchell Robinson, and Jericho Sims. Yet with plenty of teams around the league using money or future draft picks to acquire second-round picks, the Knicks elected to remain out of the draft.
There were even pre-draft rumors that the Knicks would potentially move Obi Toppin, who has never averaged more than 17 minutes per game in New York, in order to move into the first round. What happened instead was a report from Ian Begley that “I think, for Toppin, if a role opens up after this off-season, if his minutes could expand, he’d be happy [to stay].”
Considering Toppin went from 17 minutes a game in 2021-22 to 15.7 minutes a game in 2022-23, it seems illogical that his minutes could expand with the Knicks returning the entire rest of their rotation and likely adding another rotational player, like Donte DiVincenzo, who is rumored to be an organizational favorite.
In fact, the Knicks seemed to double down on Toppin by signing his younger brother Jacob to a two-way deal after the NBA Draft ended. The younger Toppin, who averaged 8.3 points and 4.7 rebounds per game over three seasons at Kentucky, is repped by CAA with Sam Rose, the son of Knicks’ president Leon Rose, as his secondary agent.
New York also kept it in the family with their other two-way contract by signing Jaylen Martin from Overtime Elite. The 6’6″ guard, who forwent his senior year of high school to joining Overtime Elite had played for former Knicks point guard Charlie Ward at Florida High.
Since New York can only have three two-way players, the team will have to cut one of Toppin, Martin, Keels, and Duane Washington Jr before the season.
While there is still time for the Knicks to make a trade or land a key player in free agency, the disappointment of essentially sitting out two straight NBA Drafts is palpable amongst the fanbase. It also makes it fair to question whether the organization is truly prepared to build around its youth or is more focused on adding veteran players to try and win a title now.
For a team that was one of the feel-good stories of the NBA season, going all in on veterans as they have for decades would be a disappointing turn of events.
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