Is the Knicks Scouting Department Top 5?

[TheDavinciCHODE]

I don't really feel like doing the research so I'd like to hear from others that know more about the league than I do.

Seeing the headline of Lance Thomas signing with Brooklyn got me thinking about this.

Lance was traded to the Knicks after bouncing around the league, then waived, then eventually worked his way to a nice contract.

Lance was a nice piece of player evaluation if you ask me. They knew he was a hard worker and could find a role in the league, even though NOP and OKC had given up on him.

Then look at other guys the team has found in the 2nd round or even undrafted:

Mitch
Dotson
Trier
Landry Fields
Langston Galloway
Ron Baker
Billy Hernangomez
Kuz


Obviously no one here is a stud - Mitch could be - but finding NBA rotation players this frequently from undrafted or 2nd rounders is impressive if you ask me. With the exception of Kuz, and probably Ron-the-don but I love him, all of these guys are/were rotation level guys...

Landry looked like a rotation guy til he signed his deal with Toronto. 9.6 points, 6.3 boards, and he even played good minutes in the playoffs as a rookie.

Do other front offices hit on undrafted talent or 2nd round players with this frequency?

Obviously the organization is a toxic train wreck made of dumpster fire, but I think we must draft better than most teams.

Thoughts?

[Hes_On_Fire]

The Knicks have decent scouting that’s more successful in finding late round steals than great players at the top of the draft. Compare our lottery picks to our late 1st and 2nd round picks and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

[TheDavinciCHODE]

The Knicks have decent scouting that’s more successful in finding late round steals than great players at the top of the draft. Compare our lottery picks to our late 1st and 2nd round picks and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Really?

What don't you like about our lottery picks? Sure, Jordan Hill was a garbage pick, but other than that, the last decade has been good in my opinion for our 1st round picks:

Shumpert (17)
Hardaway (24)
Porzingis (4)
Gallo (6)

We really haven't had many 1st rounders though. Sure, Frank hasn't panned out but he was the 8th pick. And the jury is still out on Knox and RJ, but they both have quite a bit of promise.

[NoStatsGuy]

Then look at other guys the team has found in the 2nd round or even undrafted:

Mitch
Dotson
Trier
Landry Fields
Langston Galloway
Ron Baker
Billy Hernangomez
Kuz

We are not bad but IDK about top 5.

Fields, out of the league after 5 years and was literally only a defensive player with 0 talent on the offense.

Baker couldnt even get playing time on the wizards and got waived 2 weeks after he got signed. Baker is NOT an NBA player. I know, i know you guys love him for his "defense" and effort, dude is not an NBA player lets be real here...

Hernangomez is regressing year by year and cant get any time on the hornets. His name is Willy btw

Kuzminskas, not in the league after 2 years.

We will find out what type of player Trier is, im not 100% sold on him yet. All in all you are not making a good point for top 5.

Most of these players you named are not in the league anymore after a brief perod of time and really wouldnt have gotten any playingtime on a team with playoff aspirations.

[thebuzzardman]

I think it's possible but hard to say.

I know their is some continuity with scouting, various regime changes have turned over staff, so there's a bit of comparing what the scouts were getting done a bit further back to now

Is one grouping Landry Fields, Lin, Gallo, Shump, others I've forgotten

How many of those scouts were still around for the more recent past of Galloway, WHG, Kuz, Baker, Dotson

How many of the scouts who scouted any of the 7 previous guys were still around to make the decisions on Trier, Mitch, Iggy?, Wooten etc


I think it's safe to say the Knicks scouting department has been solid and better than average for about 10 years, or at least average 10 years ago and trending upwards.

Not to over complicate it, but felt like an average scouting group (or average results) roughly 10 years ago; to definitely better than average some time in the Woodson/Phil years, in that it didn't uncover great players, but did a good job of finding useful players late in the draft or a FA - Prigoni, Copeland, Galloway, Baker, WHG, LFT, Kornet - as referenced above, not great, but the fact they got on the roster and contributed to some degree is good.

Since Perry took over, it's early days, and again, not sure which scouts have stuck around from the "Phil years" etc, but hitting on Mitch in the 2nd round and Trier as UDFA is VERY good.

As far as the premium picks, well, going to have to wait a few years. Knox the jury is out on; drafted at just turned 19, he's a development pick, so how he turns out will be something of a judgement on the collective to make predictions on a players skillset, projections and mindset. RJ was kind of a "no brainer" pick at 3, so it's hard to fault the scouts etc taking him.

Any knocks on RJ being drafted, against the scout/GM collective, will be if there are several lower end guys in the draft that really wind up looking impressive and RJ looks ordinary, and then it'll be fair to CONSIDER the argument the Knicks should have traded from #3 and gotten multiple first rounders. Again, really a couple of years away to have that discussion too.

Picking up Burke and Kadeem for the GLeague and making the roster, even though the team sucked, are solid indications as well.

[Deeeez Knicks]

Knicks have done a good job drafting latley. Mitch and Trier were great finds. I what i see from Iggy so far. Hard to say where we rank overall.

[Kampuchea]

Fields had a wrist or hand injury I think, which messed up his shot and led him out of the league. Still a good pick if not for injury

[Kampuchea]

Some analysis- second round picks have a 26% chance to play 3 plus seasons. https://the-cauldron.com/the-2nd-round-and-misuse-of-probability-402639df1038

Feels like we’re doing better than 26%

[MadGrinch]

this current scouting dept. led by scott perry i feel is top 5
knox, barret, ignas, mitch , plus finds like burke and trier

you can't really account for mishaps and injuries but for now they are doing really well.

i can't say the same for past regimes.

[spree2kawhi]

Other teams have obviously been more efficient, if not better. But there have been so many teams drafting way worse.

After all, neither Miles nor Mikal Bridges have really impressed, DSJr has been meh too. Sometimes at your pick the talent is just not there, so you cannot expect to nail it just like that. Who knows if Donovan Mitchell would have panned out similarly with our weak structure and supporting cast around here.

Then again, Mitchell Robinson was never a secret. It's not that great of an accomplishment to take a flier on him imo.

[MaseInYourFace]

The Knicks are very good getting value in second round and from undrafted signings but I don’t know if that makes them top 5. We would need to do a deep comparison to other franchises.

[knicksNOTslick]

Scouting is good, not sure about top 5, but I feel like we're not in the top 15 in terms of player development. You can point to different teams who have gotten the most out of their players after drafting them, like the Spurs for example, and maybe it's because we just give up too early on our young talent and trade them away. The only example I could think of that the Knicks developed well is David Lee. But then, at that same time, we didn't develop Frye the right way. Shumpert never really improved either, Frank is still a project so we'll see. Mitch, Knox and Trier better show some improvement. You see, we've had players have good rookie seasons in recent years, we get hyped up and then they don't improve much after their 2nd or 3rd season.

[MaseInYourFace]

Then look at other guys the team has found in the 2nd round or even undrafted:

Mitch
Dotson
Trier
Landry Fields
Langston Galloway
Ron Baker
Billy Hernangomez
Kuz

We are not bad but IDK about top 5.

Fields, out of the league after 5 years and was literally only a defensive player with 0 talent on the offense.

Baker couldnt even get playing time on the wizards and got waived 2 weeks after he got signed. Baker is NOT an NBA player. I know, i know you guys love him for his "defense" and effort, dude is not an NBA player lets be real here...

Hernangomez is regressing year by year and cant get any time on the hornets. His name is Willy btw

Kuzminskas, not in the league after 2 years.

We will find out what type of player Trier is, im not 100% sold on him yet. All in all you are not making a good point for top 5.

Most of these players you named are not in the league anymore after a brief perod of time and really wouldnt have gotten any playingtime on a team with playoff aspirations.

Fields was crafty, he could score a little. He wasn’t a total zero offensively.

[spree2kawhi]

Some analysis- second round picks have a 26% chance to play 3 plus seasons. https://the-cauldron.com/the-2nd-round-and-misuse-of-probability-402639df1038

Feels like we’re doing better than 26%

Just because we relied on him some, Ron Baker is not exactly a good 2nd round pick. The jury is still out on Trier and Dotson. I don't know if many other teams would have roster spots for them. Galloway was a fairly good pick though, but really shouldn't start (which he did last year iirc). Kuz is probably a term exclusively around this board. He wasn't any good.

Overall, we're decent I guess.

[MaseInYourFace]

Scouting is good, not sure about top 5, but I feel like we're not in the top 15 in terms of player development. You can point to different teams who have gotten the most out of their players after drafting them, like the Spurs for example, and maybe it's because we just give up too early on our young talent and trade them away. The only example I could think of that the Knicks developed well is David Lee. But then, at that same time, we didn't develop Frye the right way. Shumpert never really improved either, Frank is still a project so we'll see. Mitch, Knox and Trier better show some improvement. You see, we've had players have good rookie seasons in recent years, we get hyped up and then they don't improve much after their 2nd or 3rd season.

I remember Channing Frye actually having a pretty nice rookie season. There was hope he’d be a nice player. But he seemed to regress (I believe he had some injuries too) and eventually just became a role playing spacer big for other teams. I don’t know if I’d necessarily blame that on the knicks development. Frye probably wasn’t good enough truthfully.

[MaseInYourFace]

Some analysis- second round picks have a 26% chance to play 3 plus seasons. https://the-cauldron.com/the-2nd-round-and-misuse-of-probability-402639df1038

Feels like we’re doing better than 26%

Just because we relied on him some, Ron Baker is not exactly a good 2nd round pick. The jury is still out on Trier and Dotson. I don't know if many other teams would have roster spots for them. Galloway was a fairly good pick though, but really shouldn't start (which he did last year iirc). Kuz is probably a term exclusively around this board. He wasn't any good.

Overall, we're decent I guess.

I definitely think getting Trier as an undrafted signing was great luck. In terms of value and talent he’s a late first early second type of talent. Heck if Trier was a bit longer he’d be a lottery pick.

[Kampuchea]

Some analysis- second round picks have a 26% chance to play 3 plus seasons. https://the-cauldron.com/the-2nd-round-and-misuse-of-probability-402639df1038

Feels like we’re doing better than 26%

Just because we relied on him some, Ron Baker is not exactly a good 2nd round pick. The jury is still out on Trier and Dotson. I don't know if many other teams would have roster spots for them. Galloway was a fairly good pick though, but really shouldn't start (which he did last year iirc). Kuz is probably a term exclusively around this board. He wasn't any good.

Overall, we're decent I guess.

Dotson and Trier are NBA players, which the stat suggests you only have 26% odds to get a player that would last a few seasons. Both of them will play onto second contracts barring injury.

They missed on Baker and Kuz. That's not really a criticism though, the basis for evaluation should be the 26% and I believe we are doing much better than 26%. Surely nobody would expect 100% hit rate, that's foolish.

[Thugger HBC]

Top 5 is a reach. There are several teams that have drafted 2nd rounders that have become all-star talents. We don't have that yet.

Overall, we do make very good use of our 2nd round picks, as quite a few beat the expected value of those picks.

[thebuzzardman]

Other teams have obviously been more efficient, if not better. But there have been so many teams drafting way worse.

After all, neither Miles nor Mikal Bridges have really impressed, DSJr has been meh too. Sometimes at your pick the talent is just not there, so you cannot expect to nail it just like that. Who knows if Donovan Mitchell would have panned out similarly with our weak structure and supporting cast around here.

Then again, Mitchell Robinson was never a secret. It's not that great of an accomplishment to take a flier on him imo.

The accomplishment may not be in the scouting, but similar to what I said when he was picked, the accomplishment was in having the confidence and the stones to go outside the box and use that high 2nd rounder on a kid who in a sense, bucked the system, took himself out of college ball and took a year off.

It might be a slight exaggeration, but to me, it's akin to what the Spurs did taking Ginobelli with a 2nd rounder. Did teams have an inkling there were good players in Europe? Sure. But they weren't positive. The comparison holds, I think, in both organizations, from scouts to GM's, having the courage of their convictions, not only in the talent of the player, but in the ability of the player to adjust or have the mental make up. There's some prediction and risk there too.

I said it then, I'll say it now. It's not only so much the "who" of the Knicks FO/scouts picking Mitch and Trier, it's the how and the what.

Good teams do deeper due diligence. They have a clearer understanding of approach, of talent, of what they are looking for. With Mitch, it was about trusting the take of their staff to pick a guy other teams might shy away from because "different". The Knicks trusted their process more than "conventional" and reaped the benefit. Got a 1st round talent with a 2nd round pick.

Trier, a little different, but what I liked is that I think the Knicks recognized, like some other teams do, that 3 year college guys, some of them, have a lower ceiling but a higher floor. And with a late 2nd rounder, UDFA, those are very solid approaches.

I think Iggy, though a freshman, that approach was similar to Trier. They saw things analytically and talent wise, that made them want him. Enough that they moved up to ensure when they kind of "couldn't believe their luck" they'd have a chance. Again, Iggy's a bit of a tweener, maybe there's some questions about who he can guard at the next level, but I'm CERTAIN that Iggy will be a contributing basketball player for at least 5 years.

I'm not a scout, I'm not involved with NBA orgs like a few guys on here, but there's something obviously different about Perry's approach. And the Knicks were doing ok scouting wise before him. But it's clearly up a notch. A noticeable step up.

[Hes_On_Fire]

The Knicks have decent scouting that’s more successful in finding late round steals than great players at the top of the draft. Compare our lottery picks to our late 1st and 2nd round picks and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Really?

What don't you like about our lottery picks? Sure, Jordan Hill was a garbage pick, but other than that, the last decade has been good in my opinion for our 1st round picks:

Shumpert (17)
Hardaway (24)
Porzingis (4)
Gallo (6)

We really haven't had many 1st rounders though. Sure, Frank hasn't panned out but he was the 8th pick. And the jury is still out on Knox and RJ, but they both have quite a bit of promise.

Mike Sweetney
Channing Frye
Jordan Hill
Frank Ntilikina

Ntilikina is still undetermined, as is Kevin Knox.

vs. Gallinari and Porzingis

It's mediocre in the lottery. Nothing amazing about it.