Really great article from the NYT about many Knick fans views on European basketball players and KP.
If KP was an American, at 7'3 with a 38 inch vertical, great shooter from 25 feet, high basketball IQ, many fans would have applauded that pick.
But because he played in Spain (reputed to be the second best league in the world) and is Latvian, he was roundly booed. I was at the draft, and it was embarrassing. I was also at the Gallinari draft and the same exact thing happened.
What is weird is that this is the first time since 1985 the Knicks' draft was roundly lauded by draft experts, other teams' GM's and talking heads. And yet, there are many many NY'ers who hate the pick.
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How many rookies really help right away? I heard a great point on the radio this morning - Andrew Wiggins is widely lauded as a great rookie from this past year and he managed to be a part of the worst team in the league. Overall, if you're expecting any rookie to come in and make a significant difference in the W/L standings, it's really optimistic. Bad teams often have plenty of minutes to spare in their rotation, so these presumably good rookies get a lot of run, but I don't see how KP is any less of a finished product than the one-and-done group.
Said another way, think back to the prep-to-pros era - would you be excited if the Knicks had drafted a player who was guaranteed right now to turn into Kobe Bryant? Of course you would, as would every other Knicks fan. Go look at his numbers from his first couple of seasons. He started a combined seven games in his first two years. Obviously, KP is hardly guaranteed to be a player on Kobe's level (nevermind that they're completely different types of players), but the possibility exists.
This was partly about the past history of Euros for the Knicks (although not entirely; Gallinari was embraced fairly quickly), and partly because most fans just aren't that informed. There are a lot of fans for whom their knowledge of NBA draft prospects comes from watching the NCAA tournament (and maybe a bit more who watch regular season college hoops). They don't then spend hours poring over DX and nbadraft.net profiles to learn about the prospects. They rely on talking heads way too much, and many of them just parrot each other without doing much research either. Add in the subtle bias that comes from KP looking a little bit more like Shawn Bradley than Dirk Nowitzki, and that seals it for many fans.
The good news is, fans are free to change their minds, and the player has every opportunity to do so. I'll readily admit that I wasn't thrilled with the pick myself at first, but I have become immediately impressed with KP's attitude, maturity and what appears to be not only a love of basketball but a true desire to be a Knick. He's really easy to root for already.
Obviously there were many hits too.
However, the state of global scouting is light years ahead of where it was even a decade ago, so the hit rate should be higher.
The idiot fans who booed on Thursday night were clearly clueless. No 19 year old ever comes in and plays big minutes on a playoff team and after Towns, Russell and Okafor, the choice was go all in on KP or pick a safe player at 4 who everyone would have said they should have traded down for that player. (Which is not so easy as we saw on Thursday night with only a couple of trade downs and that was late in the draft).
Also, it's so interesting to see the KP pick be universally hailed by draft experts, scouts, other teams' GM but still slammed by many Knick fans and SAS. Hell even the Knick hater Frank Isola loved the pick.