Though the New York Knicks don’t have the best odds to grab the top overall pick in the NBA Draft Lottery, they’re still guaranteed a top-five pick and only have to leapfrog the Minnesota Timberwolves to find themselves at number one. In fact, the team with the worst overall record has only won the lottery four times in the 30 years it’s been held, and one of those times it was a team tied at the bottom (the 2003 Cleveland Cavaliers in the LeBron sweepstakes). So it’s more than that reasonable the Knicks are preparing a wish list for their pick, and even more so that Kentucky center Karl-Anthony Towns is at the top of it, as ESPN’s Ian Begley and Chad Ford reiterated yesterday.
Ford apparently is reading all of the Knicks’ memos, because he claims to know their top-five names on the board, in order: Towns, followed by Duke’s Jahlil Okafor, Emmanuel Mudiay (of the Chinese sojourn), Ohio State’s D’Angelo Russell, and the other Blue Devil, Justise Winslow. So if Ford’s sources are to be believed, either the Knicks have been scouting very reasonably, or they just copied DraftExpress’ rankings.
Begley also notes that despite Knicks head shaman Phil Jackson claiming he’ll stand pat if their pick lands in the top four, but would consider trading out of the fifth spot, league sources told him last month the Knicks would be open to trading out of a pick as high as No. 3. Reading between the lines here, it seems clear that Jackson has his eye squarely on Towns and Okafor, the two big men at the top of everyone’s boards. That’s surprisingly logical for the Knicks.
First, they should be targeting Towns over Okafor if their focus is on defense, as Jackson claimed in Begley’s article. The former has shown himself to be miles ahead of the latter as a rim protector at this stage. Jackson has always valued rim protectors — before Shaq was Luc Longley and Bill Cartwright’s elbows, both above-average obstacles in the paint with offensive games he didn’t mind MJ ignoring after the standard first-quarter apportion.
Yes, Okafor’s polish on the offensive end is impressive (and sometimes downright sexy), but the NBA clearly values defense above all else from the center position. Bogut, Howard, Jordan, Mozgov, and Noah are all defense-first centers with limited offensive games (though Bogut and Noah are excellent passers), who are nevertheless crucial components of championship contenders. Tim Duncan and Marc Gasol would be on that list if he wasn’t also elite offensively. Towns could and should develop offensively over time, but he has a clearer path for offensive improvement than Okafor has to become even defensively adequate teamed in the front court with ‘Melo.
Second, Jackson’s triangle offense has never required a ball-dominant point guard — he’s won championships with John Paxson, Steve Kerr and Derek Fisher. Russell or Mudiay would be nice to have, and they may be great players at the NBA level, but they don’t fit what Jackson is purportedly trying to build. If Phil finds himself picking third with Towns and Okafor off the board, it would make a whole lot of sense to trade down to someone gunning for Russell or Mudiay while trying to remain in range of Willie Cauley-Stein, who might be even better defensively than Towns, but with nowhere near the offensive upside. Or he could trade out for a current NBA center who fits his plans. Since the Knicks haven’t picked in the top five since 1986, and don’t own their pick next year, Knicks fans would really love if Phil would just draft a dang player.
(Via ESPN)
