So what happened to all those picks since 1987? Let's review: 1988 - 11th overall pick went to Bulls in a swap of picks via the Charles Oakley trade. Bulls took Will Perdue. Knicks grabbed Rod Strickland at No. 19.
1989 - No. 22 pick went to Blazers (Byron Irvin) via Kiki Vandeweghe trade.
1993 - No. 26 pick went to Orlando (Geert Hammink) via 3-team trade (Clippers) for Charles Smith and Doc Rivers.
1995 - No. 24 pick went to Mavericks (Loren Meyer) via Rolando Blackman trade.
1998 - No. 16 pick went to Rockets (Bryce Drew) from Blazers, originally from Chris Dudley trade.
2000 - Acquired No. 18 pick from Raptors in Dudley trade, then flipped it later to 76ers for rights to Mirsad Turckan.
2001 - No. 18 pick went to Rockets (Jason Collins), originally to Suns in Luc Longley trade.
2002 - No. 7 pick (Nene) went to Nuggets via Antonio McDyess trade.
2004 - No. 16 pick (Kirk Snyder) went to Jazz, originally to Suns in Stephon Marbury trade.
2006 - No. 2 pick (LaMarcus Aldridge) went to Bulls in Eddy Curry trade.
2007 - No. 9 pick (Joakim Noah) went to Bulls as swap in Curry trade. Used No. 23 to take Wilson Chandler.
2010 - No. 9 pick (Gordon Heyward) went to Jazz, via Suns, via Marbury trade.
2012 - No. 16 pick went to Rockets (Royce White) via Jared Jeffries/Jordan Hill salary dump trade.
2014 - Lottery pick goes to Magic (Dwight Howard trade) via Nuggets via Carmelo Anthony trade.
So that's a lot of first round picks that went unused. The most damage, so far, came from the McDyess, Marbury and Curry trades. Four of the five picks lost turned out to be lottery picks. Of course the Anthony trade still has to be judged because of the lottery pick status. The Nuggets also can swap 2016, which goes to the Raptors via the Andrea Bargnani trade.
The Knicks won the NBA's first lottery drawing in 1985 (Patrick Ewing), but haven't won a draft lottery since the new system was implemented. There is a 0.7% chance their slot -- owned by the Magic -- comes up at No. 1.
But it won't...right?