The New York Knicks traded former first round pick Kristaps Porzingis on Thursday while he was still on his rookie contract. That’s become a trend for this franchise.
To find a player that was drafted to the Knicks and re-signed by the team to a multi-year deal after his rookie contract, we’d have to go back to Charlie Ward. He was drafted 25 years ago.
The last Knicks draft pick to sign a multi-year contract with New York after his rookie deal was Charlie Ward, who was drafted in 1994.
Seriously. https://t.co/lbYuK5XASc
— Tommy Beer (@TommyBeer) January 31, 2019
The streak could still end with 2017 first rounder Frank Ntilikina and/or 2018 first rounder Kevin Knox. Though, we wouldn’t blame anyone for being a little pessimistic about that, especially when seeing how Knox reacted to the deal. But even if it does happen, Porzingis was 18th first rounder selected by the franchise after Ward.
This signals that the team has often drafted the wrong players over the last 25 years. But even on the rare occasion when the right one has been drafted, something went wrong.
It’s not hard to figure out why this team has enjoyed so little success over the years. It’s also easy to see why people are so unwilling to give the Knicks any benefit of the doubt when deals like this are made.