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Hollinger: ”
Worst draft night: Knicks
New York spent $5 million in trades to select Toney Douglas with the 29th pick and to acquire center Darko Milicic. Douglas is a 6-foot-2 shooting guard who projects poorly to the NBA, while Milicic is an epic draft bust who isn’t going to be suddenly cured by a “system.”
I’m not thrilled with what the Knicks did at No. 8, either, getting Arizona big man Jordan Hill. Perhaps all the dysfunction in Tucson kept Hill from performing better, but I suspect the Spurs got a better player at No. 37 than the Knicks did at No. 8. New York needs a point guard, too, but passed on Brandon Jennings and Ty Lawson in order to take Hill.”
A lot of “experts” have said that they are not in love with what the Knicks did on draft night. Hollinger is not the first or the only one. But because some of his statistical evaluations decide his views on certain players, and that bothers me, I have decided to point out him on this topic.
Look, the Knicks’ night could have been better. I did not love the Douglas pick right off the bat either. I view him as an under-sized two guard. After watching Nate Robinson, I thought it was time to move on from that type of guard. But Douglas has grown on me. Walsh was set on Douglas. He tried to get that late first rounder, and he did solely to get the small guard. If Douglas was gone, Walsh was prepared to ship that pick away. If Walsh is that confident on a player that fell that late, then I will believe him. I trust Walsh’s eyes and his gut over any statistical evaluation that Hollinger can ever run. Also, the cash paid to get him means absolutely nothing to the Knicks. Absolutely nothing. The second round pick in 2011 is the only thing that I regret dealing.
As for the Darko deal, let me ask Holliunger this question. If Donnie did not make this deal, would Quentin Richardson be a better fit on the 2009-2010 Knicks team? The contracts are an absolute wash. Both expire after next season. For next season, does Darko help at all? Does he help more than Q? Will he be able to play center? Can he come off the bench and defend the middle? Is that not what we needed? Is there any risk, any at all, with making that move? I did not think so either.
As for Hill, Walsh would have taken Curry had he fallen one more spot. Walsh will admit it. D’Antoni will admit it. Jordan Hill will even admit it. But Curry went #7. Walsh was left with Hill as the best player available. In my opinion, he was a better pick than Jennings (riskier) and Lawson (more conservative, but not as much upside. Plus he has an injury history).
How those three moves add up to the worst draft night in the league, I am not sure. Minnesota drafted two point guards, and a bench player in SG Wayne Ellington. Chicago drafted two kids that play the same position in Gibson and Johnson. I like the Knicks draft night more than at least those two teams’.
O well… let’s wait and see who had the worst draft night. Hollinger is a smart guy and he has some very interesting stuff. I am just not sure he is right with his statement that the Knicks had the worst draft night.
Yeah, Hollinger knows nothing about the draft. He thought the Nets had a better draft than us. The actual draft expert, Chad Ford, gave us a B+ and Sports Illustrated said we, Philly, and the Clippers were the “outright winners of the draft.” Yahoo also lauded our draft.
So Hollinger can go somewhere. “Perhaps the dysfunction in Tuscon kept Hill from performing better.”
What? Hill averaged 18 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 blocks in the Pac-10. He has no idea what he’s saying. And LOL at the idea of taking Ty Lawson at 8.
They traded Vince Carter for Courtney Lee and they drafted another shooting guard in Terrence Williams… They didn’t have a better draft than us.
before i give my opinion on this last post ,let me relay this story that just happened to me about 2 hours ago.i was sitting in the “RACEWY DINER” IN YONKERS,NY having lunch with my wife,when all was finished and i payed the waitress our bill,i looked over at the table next to me,my heart skipped 15 beats as i realized the man sitting at the table was none other than # 15 EARL “THE PEARL” MONROE i was way too nervous to go up to him ,but my wife,who knows what a KNICKS fanatic i am ,coerced me from behind with a push and before i knew it ,i was standing in front of JESUS himself stammering for an autograph,he signed his name and number on a piece of paper i produced from my pocket,we chatted some small talk and he laughed when i showed him the BLUE AND ORANGE laces that i had just put into my sneakers only hours before.i thanked him, shook his hand,and told him how great i thought he was.man my hands and heart just stopped shaking only about a half hour ago.well thats my story
Bob- That is a cool story. I do not know how old you are, but i am assuming that you are old enough to have seen the Pearl play. As a die-hard like yourself, that must have been amazing. I am glad that he took the time to chat with you. I am sure that you know just about as much about his playing days as he does himself.
Good stuff bob.
CHRIS, i am 55 years old and obviously very passionate about our KNICKS (even though there are some people on this blog who think im pessimistic,i just have been a KNICKS fan for so long,i feel that the team belongs to me more than it belongs to DONNIE WALSH or MIKE D’ANTONI) i know everyone tries to be a professional about criticizing DONNIE WALSH, i dont believe in liking or not liking a guy.i criticize a man by every move he makes.i not a big believer in ” well its donnie walsh if he says its ok,then it must be ok” im a big critic of the entire “lets wait til 2010 plan”because being from old school sports ,i would rather build a team from trades and the draft instead of “buying players”also waiting 2 years to me is ridiculous,just because of what could happen in 2 years from a certain point,LBJ blowing out a knee is just one of them.but suppose LEBRON stays in cleve,wade stays in miami, we sign player A and player B. player A GETS A PRETTY BAD INJURY (in the nba ,thats not far fetched) player B plays ok ,but now doesnt have that good of a team surrouning him) we are now MAXED OUT in payroll and are back to where ISAIAH was and not matter how careful donnie walsh is ,if the FA signings dont work out ,we are back to square one AGAIN.i believe in opportunities and knowing when to strike,i fully believe that last week we should have traded with the wizards and taken their 5th pick, to me so far (and i want to believe that donnie is a good GM)donnie has been a little slow on the trigger and also has put all of his eggs in the 2010 basket.i know we wouldnt have won a title last year,and i know that we had to get rid of Z-BO,but i wouldve loved to see the entire season with the team that we started out with.last year was a big waste of fans ticket money(including my own several times) i think signing CHRIS DUHON WAS A MISTAKE and anthony roberson was a mistake,(sometimes i think d’antoni was a mistake)but thats cuz i like the knicks teams that were defensive and discipline oriented.only time will tell if our draft was any good ,although i like JORDAN HILL pick ,out of the players who remained ,i thought donnie wouldve been more trade active that night, but thats me …ill always complain when i think donnie or mike make a bad move,but im not gonna kiss their collective butts just because someone thinks im supposed to ,i do hope they do a great job,and ill always love the KNICKS.my wife is yelling at me to get off the frggn KNICKS blog ,and ,well,shes the head coach ,so see ya later chris
Bob, please tell me you’re lying. The Raceway Diner (by the Casino at Yonker’s Raceway) is about 3 blocks from my house and I pass by it everyone Sunday morning as I walk past the post office to get to St. Johns Church.
Guess what? I didn’t go to Church this morning because I was suppose to pick up my sister at Binghamton University until my dad decided to go.
At 5:25 I was just about to leave to go grocery shopping to cook dinner although I thought about eating out.
Earl the Pearl? Man, you’re a lucky dude.
MY HOUSE IS ABOU A HALF MILE from raceway diner,my wife and i eat there almos every sunday between 11:00 am and 2:00pm(HEY THEY HAVE THOSE GOOD THIN BREAKFAST SAUSAGELOL)
Makes no sense…no way we can win with some of these guys
If we did it backwards and took Lawson & then Blair, then they would have said we took Lawson too high & we have 2 undersized players
If we took Jennings at 8, they would have said we just re-drafted Stephon Marbury..
In my opinion, when it our time to draft, for both picks we drafted the best player available while still filling needs, we might not have had the best draft ever, but we didnt have the worst one either, not even close..
Like you mentioned Chicago drafted 2 players of the same position, not too mention they still have Tyrus Thomas & Joakim Noah
You can even make the case that the Clippers draft was somewhat of a failure because if the season was too start tomorrow, Griffin probably wouldnt see too much playtime because the Clips were unable to trade somebody out of that overcrowded frontcourt
God..i just wrote an essay..
Venting turns into essays. I did not mean to make this post as long as it was, but I was venting.
There is nothing better than venting. I cannot believe these so called experts who begin to belleve their opinions are gospel. I have been reading Hollinger’s player appraisals for a while and I find that he is wrong as often as he is right. I believe DW and MD make player decisions based on their knowledge and their instincts. Cannot do better than that. Go Knicks.
MY VENTING turns into volumes of books lol
I don’t buy any of these statistical evaluations that guys like Hollinger do. They always seem to point out how accurate they are but yet never write about the guys they were DEAD wrong about.
It seems to me for every 1 person who hated our draft and thinks Hill will be nothing more than a 8th man, there are 2 people who think he was the right pick. He was a top 5-6 player on most peoples draft boards.
Tell me outright what better option there was. The only player who I wouldn’t have minded the Knicks taking was Brandon Jennings. Who else were we going to pick? And you’re right, these people who bash the Darko trade act as though we gave up a lottery pick for him.
Exactly on Milicic. We dealt a non-rotation player for a guy that would have probably started for us last year, with all of the injuries.
yeah,its almost like we got DARKO for free.might as well give him a shot .hes big,and can block shots,but ill always wonder how players can be rated so high,can come into the NBA and stink it up.maybe hell be another chauncy billups and become an all-star cuz he found the right fit . lol
I agree with you 1000%.
I love using stats as part of my analysis of players, but some people fall so in love with their numbers and statistical models, they stop using common sense and thought.
There is no doubt at all the the Qrich/Milicic deal was a very good one. Qrich had very little value to the Knicks in the short team and ZERO value over the long haul. He’s basically done and doesn’t do a thing that isn’t easily replaced for less.
Milicic may also turn out to be useless in both the short and long term, but there is at least a decent probability he will help on the defensive end with some shot blocking this year. There’s also a small probability he can still become a decent backup over the next 5 years or more because he’s still young.
There was no downside to that deal. It was a riskless deal with some potential upside.
Also, I’m not saying that Lawson and Jennings weren’t underrated in the draft. Perhaps they were. I actually liked Lawson and thought trading down would be a good move. However, just looking at the stats does not take into account Lawson’s injury history, the fact that he’s a little older than some other players, that he played in an ideal situation for piling up those stats, and that he might be a libaility on defense in the NBA (let alone being even more likely to be injured). Jennings is probably 30% to be disruptive, get in trouble off the court, or turn into a self centered type PG that’s exactly what we don’t want in NY. I’m sure those sorts of thing wieghed into the decision making. They may or may not eventually turn out to be relevent, but they were clear cut risks that had to be part of the equation.
I’d much rather have Hollinger disappointed than have everybody else that matters like espn, Chad Ford, most of the sports writers all killing us. I’ve been watching a lot of video on both draft picks and Jordan has the potential to be as good as Chris Bosh. If that’s not good enough for a #8 pick, I don’t know what to tell you than. As fas as Douglas. He was the leading scorer in the ACC and the Defensive player of the year in the ACC. I can’t wait till he matches up against Jennings and forces him to have like 5 turn overs.
Many “experts” (I know that I’m a better “expert” than they are haha) said that we (the Knicks) did a great job on draft night, I couldn’t care less about Holliger’s opinion. Peter Vecsey had the worst article of the year though, I mean what the hell was he talking about. Turrible.
i’m about to post that mucha, and just slaughter it
Thank you, I’ll do it as well.
Upon reflection, I have to believe that Walsh already has a deal in place for David Lee. If not then he’s painted the Knicks into a bit of a corner.
Instead of drafting an excellent PG prospect, Jennings (who by all accounts was an absolute top PG prospect out of HS; is reportedly lightning quick and an excellent passer; and who made a mature, thoughtful decision to play and get paid in Europe for a yr instead of play for free in college – which probably hurt his draft status but hindsight is always 20/20), the Knicks chose to take a player in Hill, whatever his skill level, who plays the same position as Lee.
Thus, the Knicks are left at PG with only the inadequate Duhon. And at PF they have a #8 pick, Hill, that will get good money (and a multi-yr deal) and, for the time being, Lee, who will certainly get good money (and a long term deal). I dont think they plan to have both of these guys on the payroll. It makes no sense.
I dont see how Walsh could have made this decision without a plan in place to secure a good PG. I thought part of the solution was gonna be the Spanish PG from Portland (as reported on TKB), but he got traded elsewhere on draft night.
So, in my view, Lee is already a goner. My guess: Chandler and whoever the Knicks get for Lee in a sign and trade for Rubio (and more, but not much more). Or, but less likely, they pull some sort of mega complex deal where they get tradeable assets for both Lee and Robinson and deal both to Minny for Rubio.
For me, in order to attract King James the Knicks will have to make themselves competitive. To me that will require more than a stopgap at PG like Kidd or Nash.
You can use stats to prove anything you want if you show the right numbers, but Hollinger tends to do a pretty solid and fair job with his. There are some things that stats just arent going to be able to accont for, hustle, dives, shots altered, attitude, all dont have numbers. I think the reason for the negativity is that no one here talked about Hill because no one thought he’d still be on the board. I thought he’d be gone by 5. I saw him as high as 3 to OKC.
Also, I still don’t believe Minnesotta keeps both their point guards and I don’t think that this is it.
Hollinger can stfu. Hill is a player that allows the Knicks some cap flexibility and ease as far as dealing with Lee. Toney Douglas was the reason to watch FSU last season. Darko is a prototype C for D’Antoni but of course gets shelled because he’s Darko (totally understandable ssadly). I would’ve teared up in anger if we took cocky Jennings (once he made the Rubio comment, i signed off on not liking him) at 8. For some reason, I felt Patty Mills would’ve been a decent gamble at 29 but alas what’s done is done.
Personally, I still think Minnesota thought too far ahead with their picks and decided they were just gonna overload at a position. And I think there’s going to be negative people for the draft regardless because there was a negative notion toward it in the 1st place.
According to Hollinger’s “system” Ty Lawson should have been taken #1
um…ok….i think i’ll go with Donnie on this one
Interesting article in The Post regarding Hill’s final college game against Louisville
Schwartz goes on to say that T-Will and Earl Clark will have more productive NBA careers than Hill
http://blogs.nypost.com/sports/knicks/archives/2009/06/schwartz_knicks.html
I really think Clark will end up in the ROY race with Evans and Griffin.
Earl Clark? Wow I definitely respect your opinion but I don’t see it happening, interesting pick though.
Evans is be the most talented player in this draft (with Griffin and Harden) but he’s an oversized scoring point guard and he’ll have to play with an oversized shooting guard who averaged only 2.7 apg this past season – Evans will definitely have to go through the twelve labors of Hercules. But the ROY award may not be out of reach.
The Knicks are just makin’ room for LeBron in 2010. Sportscaster John Discepolo breaks it down on Big Apple Channel dot com.
AND IF lebron doesnt come ,what do we do with all these parts and pieces?this is a bad way to build a team ,focusing on a player who might not be here in 2 years