If only if it were as simple as adding water and watching players grow. :)

The NBA draft is not an exact science. You can't pick just any player and hope he develops. Unless you're among the very worst teams in the NBA or VERY, VERY lucky in the lottery, your team needs to have some good scouts in the field who can judge potential.

I think the Knicks made some wise moves, trading away their young players over the years--- showcase them and move them before other teams realize that it just ain't gonna happen. For over a decade, we were among the top 6 teams in the league, so we were left with 1st round picks in the 20s. At that point of the draft, it's basically a crapshoot.

We did well by trading these late 1st round picks for veterans that could contribute. These young guys we've traded are worth more to us as trade bait than as players. There usually 2 or 3 surprises per draft, but usually players drafted this late amount to journeymen at best.

We've always prescribed to the technique of letting players develop on other teams... then snatching them when they're ripe. Of course, the luxury tax is detering this tactic to some extent now.

Now that our team is mediocre, our draft picks are much more valuable to us. Now it might be worth investing time developing our players. 1-15, you're dealing with players with higher upside and fewer questions.

Yeah, it seems to be part of the Knicks Management mission statement.

"Let top-5 draft picks develop for other teams, and pilage them while their trade value is down, that is our motto."

Layden is just following in the footsteps of his predecessors.

I dunno, if we dont get big at the 5 to fill up the lane, we're in the same position as last year... if Dyess gets healthy we'd probably get the playoffs but how far we advanced is the big question... man thinking about it I'm not even thinking playoffs, I'm hoping the knicks push a deal or a contract for a 5 sometime soon as we might have gotten bigger at the 3 but we've also gotten less defensive on our perimeter where eastern conference has a slue of talent at those spots, we're gonna need someone to fill up the lane considering how much the knicks are gonna be penetrated on this year.. :)