After reading the Chad Ford article about the draft's best athletes, why not Joey Graham at 8? He can play 2, 3, or 4, gives the Knicks a physical presence (who was the last physical player on the Knicks? Oakley?), and a tremendous athlete.

Graham came out of the combine rated as the best athlete in the draft, he's 6'7", gives the Knicks a long-distance threat (averaged 48% from 3point range in his last 2 years) and a defensive player, and averaged 17 and 6 for a top-flight program. He reminds me of a poor man's Shawn Marion, with his ability to guard guards and forwards and not get pushed around by the bigger guys.

It appears the Knicks will be able to nab Steven Hunter with the MLE if need be, since Phoenix has no intentions of throwing a lot of money at him. Hunter appears to be more of a C than Frye does, and if you extrapolate his stats to 30-minutes (what he would play on the Knicks), he puts up 13 points, 7 boards, and over 2 blocks a game.

Also, Luther Head has really impressed me. He's one of the best athletes in this camp, can moonlight as a point, and is automatic from 3.

If the Knicks nabbed Graham at 8, Head at 30, and signed Hunter, the team would be moving in the right direction.

Lets say we do the Boozer for Penny deal but instead of moving up two slots we get a future unprotected first rounder. Then at 8 we take Joey Graham. We sign Hunter to the full MLE. We take the best players available with our other two picks -- say they end up to be Luther Head and Badsen.

I agree with you about Graham. The guy has Richard Jefferson written all over him in my opinion.

We completely revamped our team in one offseason to be very solid defensively and we added a much needed toughness. This also forms a pretty powerful team that IT said he wants to create.

Starters
Marbury, Graham, Malick Rose, Boozer, Hunter

Bench
Crawford, KT, Sweetney, Ariza, Head, Badsen, JYD, Mo Taylor, TT, Butler

We would need to either cut or trade Mo Taylor and TT because they shouldn't see the floor with this roster.
That team would gets stops when we need them and would have some shotblocking. We would win 15 to 20 more games just because we could play defense.

Posted by BigSm00th:

After reading the Chad Ford article about the draft's best athletes, why not Joey Graham at 8? He can play 2, 3, or 4, gives the Knicks a physical presence (who was the last physical player on the Knicks? Oakley?), and a tremendous athlete.

Graham came out of the combine rated as the best athlete in the draft, he's 6'7", gives the Knicks a long-distance threat (averaged 48% from 3point range in his last 2 years) and a defensive player, and averaged 17 and 6 for a top-flight program. He reminds me of a poor man's Shawn Marion, with his ability to guard guards and forwards and not get pushed around by the bigger guys.

It appears the Knicks will be able to nab Steven Hunter with the MLE if need be, since Phoenix has no intentions of throwing a lot of money at him. Hunter appears to be more of a C than Frye does, and if you extrapolate his stats to 30-minutes (what he would play on the Knicks), he puts up 13 points, 7 boards, and over 2 blocks a game.

Also, Luther Head has really impressed me. He's one of the best athletes in this camp, can moonlight as a point, and is automatic from 3.

If the Knicks nabbed Graham at 8, Head at 30, and signed Hunter, the team would be moving in the right direction.

No to Joey Graham with our lottery pick

Big YES to Stevie Graham if he's still there for our 2nd rounder.

[Edited by - knicksbabyyeah on 06/19/2005 08:14:05]

Hey BigSmooth....this is the most intelligent draft post yet this year. I might be inclined to substitute D Ewing for L Head. But great thoughts.

Posted by joec32033:

That Boozer for Penny trade doesn't work str8 up but how does this look....Boozer and Harpring for Penny and Sweets?

I think the rumor in the papers was TT for Boozer with the teams swapping 1st rd picks.

Posted by Bonn1997:

Posted by joec32033:

That Boozer for Penny trade doesn't work str8 up but how does this look....Boozer and Harpring for Penny and Sweets?

I think the rumor in the papers was TT for Boozer with the teams swapping 1st rd picks.

Thats a no brainer. I would shoot first ask questions later.

I have seen graham play, Combines can be misleading, Joey is a good athlete, but He is not the fluid swingman we need. I am not a big fan of his game. I want to ge a more complete ball player with the lottery pick, graham is a good kid, but not lottery material to me..