The Knicks' Dodgy Draft
Conspiracy theorists have several holy grails: the nonfiction version of the JFK assassination; the identity of Deep Throat; what the Bush administration knew about 9/11 on 9/10. Then there's the Big One: how the NBA let the Knicks get the number-one pick in the draft the year Patrick Ewing graduated.
There's no smoking gun here, other than tons of speculation that the fix was in (like in Florida, according to the Bush conspiracy theorists)?which is why the league allowed several journalists to view the winging pingpong balls that set up this year's draft order. All was determined kosher; the Knicks were determined to pick seventh.
Back in l986, when Ewing came out, so the conspiracy theory goes, the NBA needed a strong team in its number-one tv market. New York, a cornerstone franchise, didn't have one. The last Knicks championship season had been 1973. Yes, Walt "Clyde" Frazier, a first-round draft choice, was still around then, as was Dave DeBusschere, who cried tears of joy as general manager when the Knicks "won" the rights to Ewing. DeBusschere was also on the only other Knicks title team: 1970, Red Holzman's "Hit the Open Man" cerebral squad, featuring current coaching guru Phil JackZen and Rhodes scholar Dollar Bill Bradley.
A gimpy, drugged-up Willis Reed limped onto the court for Game 7 that year, hit two uncontested foul-line jumpers in the first minute (uncontested by Wilt Chamberlain), put the raucous Garden crowd into the game and totally took the Elgin Baylor-Jerry West Lakers out of it. Frazier had 36 points, 19 rebounds, dozens of assists and back-to-back back-breaking steals. Frazier, Reed, Jackson and Bradley were all draft choices.
But the Knicks haven't always drafted well. In the 60s, scouting consisted of watching the NCAA championship game and picking whoever scored the most points. Result: a stiff like Cincinnati's Paul Hogue. Why couldn't it have been the year Oscar Robertson played for the Bearcats? Because back then the league had a territorial draft choice and the Big O went to the Cincinnati Royals, ne Rochester, then Kansas City, currently Sacramento Kings. (At least they're still royalty.) Ancient history.
To keep this relatively painless, we'll only go down memory lane 20 years with the Knicks' first-round picks:
1982: Trent Tucker (6th selection), Minnesota. 1983: Darrell Walker (12) Arkansas. 1984: No first-round selection. 1985: Patrick Ewing (1) Georgetown. 1986: Kenny Walker (5) Kentucky. 1987: Mark Jackson (18) St. John's. 1988: Rod Strickland (19) De Paul. 1989: No first-round selection. 1990: Jerrod Mustaf (17) Maryland. 1991: Greg Anthony (12) UNLV. 1992: Hubert Davis (20) North Carolina. 1993: No first-round selection. 1994: Monty Williams (24) Notre Dame; Charlie Ward (26) Florida State. 1995: No first-round selection. 1996: John Wallace (18) Syracuse; Walter McCarty (19) Kentucky; Dontae Jones (21) Mississippi State. 1997: John Thomas (25) Minnesota. 1998: No first-round selection. 1999: Frederic Weis (15) Limoges, France. 2000: Donnell Harvey (22) Florida. 2001: No first-round selection.
Not exactly a bunch of All-Stars. Only Ward (overpaid) and Jackson (over the hill) are still Knicks, and they had to trade to get Jackson back. Not to mention that Kenny "Sky" Walker couldn't dribble a basketball (never dribbled more than once on any possession in his entire Knick career), or that foreign stiff Frederic Weis was taken over local product Ron Artest. Artest stars for Indiana, Weis can't even find his way out of France. Nor to mention six first-round picks traded away.
Only Strickland, Anthony, Davis, Williams, McCarty and Wallace are still?barely?in the league. Patrick is on the cusp of retirement from the Magic Kingdom, with no championships, and remains the only impact player drafted by New York in that 20-year cycle, certainly the only one who made a ton of money, even in today's throwing-money-around era. In a world where Juwan Howard makes $15 million, anything is possible.
So, with the seventh pick, the Knicks president/GM, Scott Layden, whose claim to fame, outside of being Frank Layden's son, lies in drafting Shandon Anderson, Bryon Russell and Howard Eisley all in the second round for Utah (not in bringing Anderson and Eisley to the Knicks, where they underachieved), selected Maybyner "Nene" Hilario, a 6-10 kangaroo-jumping forward from Brazil. Nene translates to baby, which the 19-year-old who currently needs an interpreter is, though he sports a stunning earring; he has, as they say, tremendous upside. (More than Frederic Weis.)
And, just like that, he was gone. Foreigners don't last long with the Knicks. Hilario was traded, along with Mark Jackson and oft-injured Marcus Camby, to Denver for the injured Antonio McDyess and draftee Frank Williams. Who will play more games, McDyess or Camby, is anybody's guess. McDyess has a bum knee, Camby a bad back, hip, etc. A knee to a basketball player is like a hand to a concert pianist. Layden was booed louder than Le Bust Weis by the Garden Theater crowd when interviewed on tv to talk about the trade, even though he was wearing a New York Fire Dept. hat.
Houston selected China's 7-5 Yao Ming, the prize for winning first pick in the battle of the pingpong balls. Conspiracy theorists thought the NBA would send the big center to the Big Apple, allowing the Knicks to begin another Ming Dynasty. For now, they'll have to turn elsewhere, like what did Martha Stewart know about Erbitux and when did she know it? The rumor is she's shutting Living Omnimedia down and starting a new company: Gracious Homeland Security.