Another year, another unlucky Lottery outcome for the Knicks.
New York fell back to the eighth pick for the 2020 NBA Draft on Thursday, with the league revealing the draft order in its annual lottery. Knicks president Leon Rose represented the team.
New York hasn’t moved up in the Lottery in its last 17 tries. With the sixth-worst record in the NBA, the Knicks had a 50 percent chance of falling to the seventh or eighth pick entering Thursday.
After another brutal season, this wasn’t the scenario the Knicks -- or their long-suffering fans -- wanted on Lottery night.
But it still leaves Rose with a solid asset to start the club’s rebuild.
Now, the question is, who will the Knicks pick?
LaMelo Ball is generally regarded as the top point guard in the draft. That’s a position of need for the Knicks. Teams doing their homework on draft prospects believe Ball and people around him -- including his father -- see the Knicks as a preferred destination.
The Knicks, as of late May, had Ball as the top-ranked point guard on their draft board.
But it’s highly unlikely that Ball is available at No. 8. So New York would have to trade up into the top three or four to select Ball.
Other top prospects potentially available to New York at No. 8 include France’s Killian Hayes, North Carolina’s Cole Anthony and Iowa State’s Tyrese Haliburton.
Now that they have the No. 8 pick, the Knicks have to decide if they want to take a point guard (biggest position of need) or go with the best player available. They also have to decide if they are open to trading the pick for an established star.
There are people in the organization who feel like New York is well positioned to trade for a disgruntled star.
We’ll find out more about the strategy they’ll use with the pick in the coming days and weeks. Either way, they’re in position to upgrade a roster that’s desperately in need of a talent infusion.
But on Thursday night, Knicks fans hoping the club would get lucky were left disappointed, just as they have for the past 35 years.
In 1985, the Knicks had the third-best odds of finishing with the top pick. With Dave DeBusschere on the dais, the club landed the top pick (amid some controversy) and drafted Patrick Ewing. New York was a perennial playoff team under Ewing.
That was the last time they’d moved up in the Lottery.
Thursday didn’t end that streak. But if things go the way the Knicks hope, Rose and his group will use the eighth overall pick to bolster their rebuild.