18) Finally, let’s return to our thought experiment above. Let’s say our hypothetical team has the 3rd pick and that Cavs are willing to make a similar deal for Barrett to the one that the Mavericks made for Doncic. Done. Now we have the 5th pick and a top 5 protected 2020 pick from the Cavs, a team that figures to pick high next year as well. But we’re not done there. Let’s say Atlanta falls in love with Culver and is willing to trade 10, 17, and 35 for Culver. Also done.

Now we have the 10th pick, the 17th pick, the 35th pick and a top 5 protected 2020 pick from the Cavs. That’s when Boston calls us. They’ve fallen in love with a player at 10 that won’t make it to 14. I don’t know who, it’s just hypothetical. So Boston offers picks 14 and 22. Done.

Now our team has pick 14, pick 17, pick 22, pick 35, and a top 5 protected pick from Cleveland for the 2020 draft. That’s when Philadelphia calls. They have five picks, they don’t want to use them all and they like the players available at 17 better than those available at 24, so they offer pick 24, pick 33 and some cash considerations. Perhaps we do that deal, perhaps we stay where we are.

If we stick, we end up with pick 14 (PJ, Goga or Clarke), pick 17 (whoever remains from pick 14 + guys like Claxton, Thybulle, Herro, Terence Davis, Cam Johnson to choose from), pick 22 (Grant Williams), pick 35 (Carsen Edwards, Terence Davis, Chuma Okeke or Talen Horton-Tucker) and a top 5 protected first from the Cavaliers in 2020. If we make the deal, we instead end up with pick 14 (PJ, Goga or Clarke), pick 22 (Claxton, Tybulle, Herro, Cam Johnson, Terence Davis), pick 24 (Grant Williams), pick 33 (Davis, Edwards, Okeke or THT), pick 35 (a choice between whoever remains) and the Cleveland pick.

Consider the above. If we’re the Knicks front office and in position at 3, how can we possibly compare Grant Williams to RJ Barrett, without also considering that picking Grant Williams means also acquiring a high value 2020 first round draft pick (perhaps more), and then an additional chance at possibly two, three, or four players from the group above? This is acknowledging, to be fair, that this is only an approximate guess as to how much value a team could extract by moving down in this way.

RJ Barrett’s an excellent NBA prospect, but how good would he have to be to outweigh the advantages of moving down for a prospect one knows is likely undervalued by the league? And at the very least, even if we decide RJ Barrett is valuable enough to be the choice at 3, shouldn’t our big board, our primary draft decision-making tool, be helping us to map the potential value dynamics between selecting Barrett and moving down repeatedly for a player like Williams. After all, moving down for Williams is not just a move down for Williams, it’s likely to be a move down for potentially other undervalued players as well.

Keep the pick!