The Knicks have been bad lately, but probably not bad enough to crack the top five if their lottery luck (or lack thereof) over the years says anything. Still, it’s worth previewing the very best prospects of 2022!

Welcome to The Strickland’s 2022 draft coverage. We have a lot of great stuff planned for this year: the usual draft prospect profiles, a couple of deep dives, and some new surprises. 

As the Knicks’ season has spiraled out of control, many a Knick fan has slowly welcomed the familiar cold embrace of unintentional tanking. A few weeks ahead of March Madness, the shape of this draft class has begun to take shape. If you ask most folks, the draft class has four or five crown jewels. After that top tier, there’s somewhere between four to eight really impactful prospects with relatively high floors and also real upside. After that, there’s literally like 30 guys who have arguments to be in the mix for the late lotto or mid-to-late first round. We can confidently say you can get a mid-first-round quality prospect in the second round this year. 

We’ll get into the philosophical questions in the coming months, namely:

1) Is it a bad draft to pick between 4-12, where New York will likely end up, and what does that mean for Leon Rose? 

2) What do the Knicks do in a draft without high end lead ball handlers?

3) How does the glut of prospects the Knicks already have scattered across their roster impact their pick(s)?

For now, I want to get into the consensus top five prospects, because it is unlikely the Knicks end up with one of them. At least, as of the All-Star break. Yes, I am ignoring New York’s 3-15 record heading into the break and assuming there’s some floor the Knicks will hit that isn’t a bottom three record, and yes, I am assuming another year will pass without New York being blessed by the ping pong balls. If that changes, The Strickland will be sure to provide more in depth analysis of these talented kids and how they’d fit on the Knicks. So without further ado, a quick overview of the untouchables of the 2022 class in no particular order:

Jaden Ivey, SG, Purdue

The 6-foot-4 sophomore guard from Purdue is electric. As of the NBA All-Star break, he is averaging 17/5/3 on 47/38/73 splits. He would probably score even more on other teams, but Purdue — a top five team in the country — features an offense where Jaden shares touches with point guards, a point-big, and a 7-foot-4 post up threat, often all at the same time. He is known primarily for his high-end athleticism, and rightfully so: he is built like a football player and can get to the rim in one dribble from the 3-point line, he is a one man fast break, and he is a constant threat to finish above the rim. The athleticism also manifests on defense, where he is a sound defender on- and off-ball with strength and lateral agility, both of which he uses to be physical with his man at the point of attack.

As a freshman, he didn’t shoot particularly well from three, leading some to question his shooting chops. He has a bit of a Ja Morant-esque push shot, which didn’t help matters. However, he quickly put those misplaced concerns to rest, beginning with a run of good shooting for Team USA in the FIBA U19 competition and continuing through his second collegiate season. He’s shown an ability to not just catch and shoot, but take threes off movement, off the dribble in different directions, and even make crunch time threes. This is more in line with who he was in high school, where he also knocked down over 40% of his threes.

Finally, it’s notable that the game seems to be slowing down for him as the season continues. He’s discovering the gears between first and fifth, and has shown more willingness to probe, to pass, to get defenders on his hip, to take time to read the defense, and to take midrange pull-ups and floaters (he’s still not great at them, but they’re important tools if he wants to be a ball handling guard). His highest upside outcome involves him doing a lot of ball handling to maximize his scoring and athleticism, so the development is a welcome sight - we will see if it continues into March Madness.

AJ Griffin, Wing, Duke

One of the youngest players in the draft, AJ Griffin has taken a backseat in Duke’s offense. He isn’t a ball handler like Trevor Keels or Wendell Moore, he isn’t a post-up threat like center Mark Williams, and he isn’t an elite offensive dynamo like fellow top pick Paolo Banchero. He even started the season coming off the bench. As a result, his raw counting numbers aren’t impressive. However, that hasn’t stopped draft-watchers from salivating over his pro potential for several reasons, chief among them that he hasn’t actually played much basketball the last two years due to injury and due to joining his father (Raptors coach Adrian Griffin) in Tampa for part of last season. 

For starters, he is built like a grown-ass man despite being only 18, and he is 6-foot-6 with a 7-foot wingspan. Once upon a time, he had head-at-the-rim athleticism, but high school injuries robbed him of some of that vertical quick-twitch explosiveness. He’s not un-athletic, but he has to rely much more on his skills now. Fortunately, his skill is considerable: he’s spent most of the season hovering around 50% from three, with a TS% around 64, both insane numbers for a wing. He isn’t just a catch-and-shoot merchant either, and is comfortable creating his own jump shots from three and from midrange. Eighteen-year-olds with jump-shot creation chops and elite shooting are worth their weight in diamonds in today’s NBA. On top of that, he’s also beginning to learn how to leverage combo moves and his strength into paint forays, although that is more of a work in progress — hopefully in the NBA he shows more ability to bully his way into the paint and draw fouls.

Defensively, his size and bulk sometimes makes him slow laterally, but he can often use strength and length to remain in plays. Similar to one RJ Barrett, he is probably better suited to guarding bigger wings than water bug combo guards. Off-ball, he can get caught sleeping like many an 18-year-old, but he also shows flashes of reading the game ahead of time and making borderline genius level rotations off-ball to save defensive possessions. 

Ultimately, with AJG you’re talking about a power wing with finesse skills who can shoot the lights out despite playing much less basketball in the last two years than his fellow classmates. Don’t overthink it.

Paolo Banchero, PF, Duke

Paolo shares a lot of basketball DNA with Knicks stars of present and past: namely Julius Randle and Carmelo Anthony. A 6-foot-10, 250 lb. power forward who basically played point forward in high school, Banchero is a powerhouse with balletic footwork and a hypnotizing package of fakes and hesitations. He’s athletic enough to blow by opponents who play up on him, and strong enough to bully pretty much anyone he comes against in the ACC. At the college level, he warps defenses as soon as he gets the ball due to his combination of interior prowess and credible jump shooting. The form looks better than the numbers at this point, as his 3-point percentage has dipped below 30%, but the free throw shooting and midrange shooting numbers remain solid. Defenses honor it as well.

On offense, he has no real holes in his game: he projects to be a solid shooter, has the moves of a 27-year-old veteran, athleticism in space and in a crowd, and the passing chops to take advantage of the attention he draws. His passes in a crowd are particularly impressive, as he is willing to make one-handed looks through a crowded paint if the payoff is a layup or dunk for one of his teammates. He is the easiest bet of this top five to score above 20 a game, and probably the best bet to average five assists well. He’s the best to be an offensive primary option for an NBA team. 

Defensively, his size makes him less versatile than other power forwards — it is hard to be especially agile at 250, even if he is a slim and athletic 250. On-ball, especially when the game is in the balance, he can and will get into a good stance and harass his man with a combination of strength and willpower that is tough to stop (a similarity he shares with Melo and Randle). His height and hops also lets him be impactful as a weak side rim protector, and lets him threaten his man even if he is a beat behind them on drives. Off-ball, he is still prone to ball-watching and isn’t much of a disruptor. Getting him to buy into a defensive identity as an important cog in a good team-wide defense earlier in his NBA career will be paramount for whichever team drafts him to take advantage of his considerable offensive skills.

Jabari Smith Jr., Wing, Auburn

The most plug-and-play guy of this group, 6-foot-10 forward Jabari Smith brings two very impactful, leap-off-your-screen loud elite skills to the table: shooting and defense. The lone good shooter on Auburn, he has spent the majority of his age 18 freshmen season scorching nets and hitting over 40% of this threes and many tough midrange pull-ups. He shoots from NBA range, from the FT line, off the dribble, off the move, when open, when contested. Ten threes per 100 possessions is the absolute most you’ll see of any 6-foot-10 college player, and that number will likely rise in the NBA as coaches leverage his skills better than Bruce Pearl does.

His high and quick release make guarding him 1-on-1 a tough proposition, even if he has yet to really mess around with paint forays other than straight line drives, and even if he doesn’t create for others much in Pearl’s offense. He’s also not particularly explosive, but he’s also comfortable getting physical (as evidenced by great rebounding numbers despite being a skinny tall guy). He’s a ball of clay that happens to already be an elite shooter, and when he gets in the zone it’s exciting to watch — and he’s letting opponents know too. 

Despite being a little stiff on offense, defensively he is extremely comfortable getting in a low stance and stretching his long arms out, daring defenders to get by him. He takes pride in stonewalling big players in the post and small players on the 3-point line; he’ll clap in your face, he’ll make help rotations at the rim. He does it all. He’s versatile, and if you subscribe to the “‘you are who you can defend’’ mantra of positionality, he can credibly play the 3 and honestly probably the 2 as well in the NBA. He’s an easy fit pretty much anywhere due to his defense and shooting and size — and therefore likely an easy, risk-free call for any NBA GM. 

Chet Holmgren, PF/C, Gonzaga

Chet — of the 7-foot-1 tall, 7-foot-6 wingspan, frailly thin 190-lb. frame — defies comparison. Is he a center? A power forward? A pterodactyl? You tell me! Does him being skinny and tall make him more or less injury prone? I don’t know! At Gonzaga he plays both the 4 and 5, and in the NBA he projects to do the same, a la fellow skinny 7-foot stretch bigs Evan Mobley and Jaren Jackson Jr., though he projects to rebound better than them due to his height and length. Any discussion of Chet starts with his work close to the hoop on both ends: he blocks shots, alters shots, and deters shots wherever he is. Even if someone uses superior strength to move him out of the way, he still manages to block or alter shots because of his length, hops, and coordination. On offense, he basically doesn’t miss 2-point shots — many dunks, but also many layups and short midrange touch shots. He’s spent the season around 85% at the rim, a preposterous number. 

Chet can also shoot. He’s around 45% from three, many of them unassisted transition pull-ups, which is becoming a signature move of his. His height and release make his 3-point shots basically un-guardable, and he projects to be the latest in the current wave of true stretch bigs to hit the NBA. The next step for Chet as a jump shooter is to leverage his shooting ability into midrange self-created shots a la Dirk or KG or Mobley, a shot he currently eschews in Gonzaga’s Drew-Timme-centric offense. 

Finally, he rounds out his skillset with exemplary passing and ball movement. He’ll often bring the ball up the court himself and initiate the offense. He’ll sit in the middle of opposing zone defenses. He’ll play high-low with center Drew Timme. He’ll move the ball along the perimeter to other shooters willingly. All in all, Chet is someone who really sets himself apart not through self creation but by impacting — warping, really — the game wherever he is, on both ends, with or without the ball. He must always be heavily accounted for, which is a strain on opposing teams that any coach would love to inflict.