May I stash you a question?: The case for the Knicks to draft a stash player in the 2022 NBA Draft
Usually reserved for later first round picks or second round picks, could the Knicks’ current roster situation make a “draft and stash” player the most appealing option at the No. 11 pick?
The New York Knicks will most likely pick 11th after a disappointing season. From the outside, that may not look like a great place to be. After all, Knicks fans had dreams of a top pick at the halfway point in the season! However, if there is one thing this new regime has done, it is find value at every place in the draft. From drafting a likely stud starting power forward in the top 10, to drafting premium rotation players in the 20s and 30s, to a back-up big at the 58th(!!) pick in the draft. I trust Walt Perrin and Co. to come out of this draft with talent. Heck, Assistant GM Walt Perrin was the one who drafted Donovan Mitchell at 12th in 2017; he’s been doing this for years.
It is after June 23 — once the draft is done — that I have some concerns. The Knicks have some serious roster bloat. There are young players up and down the roster that all can not realistically get enough playing time in the NBA to effectively develop. Learning on the bench and in the G League is cool, but there is nothing like real NBA minutes, and guys who develop without them are pretty rare (Anfernee Simons is one of the few, for example, and even he ultimately needed Dame Lillard and CJ McCollum to get hurt to break through). With the upcoming draft, New York stands to only add to its crowded roster. There are two main ways to solve this. First is to trade the pick. That is BORING so we will be discussing the other main option, the maneuver known as the “draft and stash.”
When a team drafts a foreign player, the player does not have to come to the NBA immediately (example: the Knicks’ own foreign draft pick last year, Rokas Jokubaitis, who spent the year continuing to play for Barcelona in Spain and just won the EuroLeague’s Rising Star award). This delays their rookie contract starting, frees up a roster spot, and still allows them to develop in the systems that got them drafted. The two main lottery options for a draft and stash this year are Nikola Jovic and Ousmane Dieng. Both are young, talented wings who have a lot of room to grow. Both have shown significant growth this season on their respective teams in the Adriatic League and in the Australian NBL.
I go back and forth on who I have over the other pretty much everyday. But for this article let's start with Nikola Jovic. Jovic is a 6-foot-10 forward with solid shooting projections as well as pick-and-roll and creation upside. He is a constant threat in transition and semi-transition because of his plus ball handling for his size and excellent court vision. Defense is not his forte, so I believe his best role on a team is a stretch four who can run big/big and big/small PnRs a few times a game. His combo of size and skill is rare, and while he doesn’t have off-the-charts athleticism, it is functional; and he is pretty fast with the ball in his hands, too. I think Jovic can benefit from a stash year so he can really work on his overall scoring consistency and efficiency. Not to mention that the club he plays for has sent Nikola Jokic and Ivica Zubac to the league, so there is a level of pedigree there in the Adriatic League – you can trust he will continue to take steps forward there.
The other lotto option is Ousmane Dieng. The 6-foot-9 long-limbed Frenchman has not had the most statistically impressive stint in the NBL and had quite an adjustment period upon joining the New Zealand Breakers. Despite that, I think he has upside with his physical tools and game feel. A guard/wing with PnR upside at his height is not something to scoff at. After all, most 18-year-old guards don’t show the ability to pull off impressive cross-court passes reading defenses on the fly, much less 6-foot-9 wings. There may be some concerns about his shooting numbers, but he is definitely the kind of talent you invest in. That is not even touching on his defense, which profiles out to be impactful at the NBA level. He has been on a heater lately, scoring 62% on 2-pointers in his last 10 games or so, and improvement in-season is always a great sign. Why not consider letting him continue building on the considerable momentum he has created?
Now we can get into a fun theory-crafting section. Let us discuss what I am calling the “pseudo stash.” This is an American player who the Knicks could draft and have ZERO intention of playing this year in the NBA. Just tell them to go on a pilgrimage to Westchester for a year and come back next summer like Moses after he spent 40 days in the desert. There is not much precedent for it, but a recent example of this would be Daishen Nix, a point guard who many had ranked as a late-first round level prospect, went undrafted, and regained his stock and then some for Houston’s G League team before signing a multi-year deal with the Rockets.
Now, is there a difference between an undrafted free agent and a lotto pick? Yes! It may seem wasteful to put a lotto pick in the G League, but that is where they can really grow and put some development into action. With the league getting more crowded, some teams may begin trying this more often — we’ve seen rotation-caliber guys like Daishen, Deuce McBride, Jericho Sims, Jalen Johnson, and others go through this process. Now, I don’t believe this is a likely outcome, just a fun thought experiment with two prospects as my focus.
So who could be a pseudo stash? Who else is a young, high-upside prospect with the outlines of an impact player? I would love to get Jaden Hardy, the scoring guard from the G League Ignite, into the “Johnnie Bryant School for Guards to be Absurd Scorers by Year 3 with 90th Percentile Outcomes” (trademark, do not steal, we have lawyers at The Strickland). Hardy is still trying to shake off the narratives that formed when he had a rough start to the GLI season — that he was an inefficient chuck, namely. And yet, his shooting stabilized in 2022 and his assist numbers look good. His size at the point is a plus, being 6-foot-4 with a 6-foot-9 wingspan. Worth a late lotto look, especially if you buy his upside and buy New York’s ability to develop him not just in MSG, but in Westchester. If the front office unsticks the roster crunch, great — but if not, there is still a real plan.
Another prospect in this range is Dyson Daniels, the Australian G League Ignite point guard/combo guard/wing/connector. Daniels is a defense-first guard with very good passing skills and an elite floater. His offensive package is still raw outside of his finishing, but give him time to rep catch-and-shoot threes and the Knicks could be dealing with a monster two-way wing — who could even play some point guard. He played a lot of point guard for Australia in the U19 tournament and with the Ignite. There may be something there. With his floor as a plus connector and plus finisher, a player like him is very much something I would like to invest in.
A final potential pseudo-stash prospect we are examining today is Canadian Leonard Miller. The 6-foot-11 (7-foot-2 wingspan) forward was a late addition to the early entry pool, mainly due to his stellar play at the Nike Hoop Summit earlier this year. He shot 50% from the field in nine games (including the playoffs on roughly 25 shots a game) and tallied 11.6 rebounds per game. He had 1.9 steals and 1.3 blocks a game as well. He is an extremely fluid athlete who can create a shot for himself and his teammates. Definitely a raw prospect that will need a strong development plan and an organization that believes in him. You would have to 100% believe in his upside as a creator to consider him in the lottery, but tis the season for home run swings — check out this tweet from fellow Strickland scribe Alex, AKA Draft Film School:
If I had to give a ranking of them, i’d put it like so:
1. Dyson
2. Miller
3. Dieng
4. Hardy
5. Jovic
I can already hear a counter: “But that doesn't help the Knicks this season.” You are correct. This is a gamble, I won’t hide that from you, dear reader. But this is a gamble that is low-risk, high-reward. A late lotto pick is not the greatest asset in the world, and if you can take that pick to mold a player that the organization believes in, that is just smart asset management. We’ve seen sophomore NCAA players morph beyond late lotto fodder into top-6 picks, blue chip prospects developing mostly in non-NBA settings, and using the W-Knicks to replicate that with these types of players is a way for the Knicks to get ahead of the curve.
I think the Knicks are perfect for a stash approach this draft cycle because of their current bloated roster and talented development staff. Letting a foreign player experience professional basketball at a young age did wonders for both Bojan and Bogdan Bogdanavic. If you want a more Knick-focused example, I will take you back to Jokubaitis, New York’s second round pick last year. He plays for one of the best teams in Europe, and got to experience serious minutes due to the injury of the point guard of the team. That award has a great track record of producing NBA players. When it comes to the “pseudo stash” guys, it can be just as beneficial for them as it is for the Knicks. Hardy and Daniels can really work on the progress they made this season and solidify it. If both of them played a full season how they played over the last two months, no one would doubt their top 10 pick status. Giving young players professional experience in a proper development program is a win-win, and informed by both New York’s staff and their own stash teams, the Knicks could come out as big winners.
