Knick Crushed The Draft

Zach & Zack fill in for Levack & Goz to discuss why they liked what the Knicks did in the draft.

Episode Transcript

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It's Lavak and Gaze on the Voiceof the Capitol Regions Sports Fan Fox Sports
ninety five, nine and nine eighty. This is the Lavack and Gaze Show.

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But if you're listening tuning in,just now, this isn't Lavak and
Goz. This is Zach with anH, Zach with a K, which
from now on we're just gonna callyou Junior, so nobody gets confused.
That's fair. That's fair. Mostpeople from the Lavack and Gaze Show,
if you were around during a lotof the NFL kickoffs, would just hear
this mythical name Junior thrown around alot and just Jonior, what are you

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doing back there? Yeah? That'sthat's that was me. Now, Junior
could be for you for a lotof reasons, because those of you that
listen may or may not know this, but I've been told that you look
like a baby Guze. I've heardthis so many times times. God is
his own family. It gots hisown family. Now with my big bushy

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beard and my big bushy belly,people have told me that maybe I could
put pass as a Levak, Soyou know, maybe maybe I also like
that Leavak literally came in the officeyesterday and goes everyone wearing the behind the
cap, the head back cat facingthe wrong way, just as a mini

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Levac and the Levak pack. Andnow you're in here with the backwards hat
on. And so I'm like,I mean, he's already in it.
He's already part of it. Sono haters in the building here today.
But there's a lot of haters whenit comes to the NBA draft, because
if you've seen in the past whenthe Knicks drafted Chris Stops Perzingis, there

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was a meme of this eight yearold child crying he didn't know who Christop
Prezingis was. Little did he knowhe was gonna be an NBA champion with
the Boston Celtics, one of thepremier players in the league when he's healthy.
So that's where the haters are theNBA draft when they think they know
something. But you know what,when it comes to the NBA Draft and

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all your post draft grades, withall your fits and who's gonna be what
this is what I do to him? Hock, dude, spit on that
thing. I spit on him.Hock to it. Spit on that thing,
because just throw it out the window. Nikolay Jokic got drafted during a
Taco Bell commercial. Who saw that? Who saw that? Who saw this

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guy was gonna be MVP of theleague. Draymond Green, one of the
best defensive players of his era,drafted in the second round. Who saw
that? Not the person he almostknocked out, but not the person he
kicked in and grow. I definitelydidn't see that one. But what I

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say that for is because the Knicksdid some wheeling and dealing in a draft.
Now, ultimately, when you bringback og Annobi, you trade for
mckel bridges, there's not a lotyou can do financially with your roster.
Now they're still trying to look tobring Hartenstein back. We'll get into that

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later down the road, as wellas those signings and trades, But focusing
on a draft, they had topick quantity and try to get quality in
that quantity. So they took twofirst round picks and a second round pick
and turned it into one first roundpick in multiple second round picks, where

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they ended up taking this young Frenchguard. I'm not gonna even try to
say his name. This kid isyoung, he's talented. He can either
be a stash away. I knowyou might not be familiar with that term

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draft and stash or if and we'llget in more to this, if we
end up adding Miles McBride to thetrade of mckel bridges to try to make
salaries match up a little better inour favor for aprons and this apron and

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your second apron, my cooking apron. Who knows that might be the guy
that takes Miles McBride's place, ifthat's what happens. Now the player that
I liked a lot. This iswhy I consider this win. Not only
did they were they able to getmultiple players in this draft, but they

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were able to get one of thebetter point guards that led one of the
best college basketball teams in the league. Talking about Marquette, I'll take you
back to the Pacers that Pacers seriesagainst the Knicks where they got absolutely annihilated

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by a guy that you may recognizeas TJ McConnell. Oh Tyler Kollik from
Marquette led one of the best offensiveoutputs team outputs all year long. I
likened him to our own TJ McColland. The reason I say that is

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because one college player in the lastthirty years has averaged fifteen points, seven
plus assists while shooting forty nine percentfrom the field, thirty nine percent from
three point range, and eighty fivepercent from the free throw line. Eight
from the free throw line, whichlate game situations. That's exactly what you

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want eighty five percent. So forme, that was probably the best pick.
Now, the kid from France,Like I said, you can read
all these draft comparisons and to aspit on that thing. Young kid,
very raw, very athletic, hasa lot to prove. But as a

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potential draft in stash or a potentialtrade in the future, or a potential
backup shooting guard. Oh yeah,well he's the kid from France that the
next drafted. I mean, he'sa six to eight forward. You know,
he's he's a big frame, he'sa he's got solid ball idling the

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rebounds. You like a little bitmore out of at least from what was
showcase when we saw him play.But he's definitely someone that gives you some
versatility as far as options. He'ssomeone that you know, teams would definitely
look at because everyone wants size inthe NBA. If you're six foot,
you're short in the NBA. Yep. So it definitely gives them that that
platform either to do like use thatstash or you know, again, he

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obviously does need to get built uphis his points especially is somebody that he
needs to increase, especially if hewants to be a day to day player.
But is again a project for themand is definitely someone with that versatility
when you only have so many peopleon your team. Like I said at
the beginning of the segment, theyneeded to add quantity as well as quality,

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and I think they nailed it onboth ends of the spectrum. And
outside of the Marquette backup point guard, there is one other draft pick that
the Knicks had that I am obsessedwith. Now we fell in love with

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Josh Hart. If you are lookingfor a store brand, Josh Hart looked
no further than when the Knicks wentahead and drafted Kevin mccoller from Kansas,
So you know he knows how toplay basketball. That's one of those blue

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collar no where you're going, that'swhere you go if you know how to
play basketball. This guy is misterdo everything similar to Josh Hart. He
can defend, he can handle theball, he can rebound, he can
shoot, and I think the Knicksdid an excellent job of finding quantity quality.

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But guys that fit, that's thenumber one thing you want. Now,
there's teams out there like the Bucks, all right, gim me Dame
Lillard. There's teams that are bringingin all these star players. But fit,
that is something that often goes unnoticed. And that's for any sport,

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any sport where you have a team. So if you're playing tennis, this
doesn't apply to you, but anysport that you have a team. Too
often do we forget about compatibility,locker room engagement, fit in just the
way that you are going to usethese guys. So I thought they did

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an excellent job when it comes tothat, absolutely, And that's something that
happens a lot when teams are tryingto create improvement. Is a lot of
times to go overboard and trying toaddress everything rather than trying to address the
small key pieces that can help youreally just fill out what you already have
and build upon what you've been building. Again, a lot of teams go

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a lot too far, but theKnicks very much stayed in the realm of
what was reasonable for them in maximizingthe quality that they were getting in the
quantity they got absolutely. I thinkthe best way to put it is strength
in numbers. So they may nothave the best guy or the best two
guys when they're going into the ANTYBAplayoffs. Now, Jalen Brunson, I

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think has proven that he could beone of those best two guys. But
let's say you're going against the Celtics. You got Jason Tatum, you got
Brown, you got bruntson whatever orderyou want to put him in. Celtics
got two guys. You got oneguy, whatever order you want to put
him, four through twelve. Let'ssay the Knicks are going to man handle

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probably ninety percent of the league.Strength in numbers, My end of the
rotation guys are going to be endof rotation better than yours. My starters
as a whole are going to bebetter than yours. I think they're taking
the Celtic light approach where they're buildingthrough their forwards. They got great defensive

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guys and they have quality players allaround. Now, I say that,
and I give props to the Celtics, but I also kind of didn't like
what they did. And the reasonI didn't like what the Celtics did in
the draft was because you're in aposition. You won an NBA championship,

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you have solid players, you knowhow to pick them. You traded for
Derek White, you got the mostout of him. But they drafted two
guys, older guys, veteran guysthat have played through almost all of their
college eligibility, if not all theircollege eligibility. So you're talking about twenty

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two to twenty three year old guysthat are coming in that are quote unquote
NBA ready. When you're in thatsitu euation, I understand why they might
get NBA ready guys. But theyhad a stacked roster where they could have
took flyers on some dudes, andI thought they augh. I'd like to

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say that they avoided risk with theirtwo picks, and I wasn't fond of
them avoiding risk in those two picksbecause they had the wiggle room to make
those risks. Yeah, especially you'regoing sixty fort eighteen, first place in
the Atlantic Division, you were thechampions this year, and you get well

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it was it pick thirty and fiftyfour. You had Baylor and Anton who
they drafted coming from Cretan and Gonzaga. But overall, much like you're saying,
you chose veteran safe players. Theydid. Yeah, you chose guys
who they wouldn't hurt you if theyweren't what you expected them to be.
But at the same time, youknew that they were good enough to just
kind of be average. You didn'ttake any shots of getting a long shot

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who could come through and it wasa project and you could build on them
and you could maybe have this youknow, stud college kid that was never
really got his chance to shine.But no, you kind of went with
guys, we know what we're gettingalready. So take the guy at number
thirty from Creighton Baylor. Yes,bailor sorry Baylor. You know what,

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there's so many trades, so muchthat's fair, that's fair. There's a
lot of trades that happen every singleday with the draft, and it's still
stuff is still finalizing and panning outright now, even because the NBA hasn't
officially moved on to the next season. So these are all projected trades and
stuff. But nonetheless, the guythat they picked thirty, overall, he
reminds me a lot of Sam Hauser, a dude that they already have in

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their rotation. So yeah, Iknow they have certain needs and blah blah
blah. But they already have thoseguys set in stone. I thought there
was more of an appetite for riskthat they were unwilling to take. So
that's why I necessarily didn't like that. I will say, Howser is technically
a twenty twenty four free agent asof right now. But take the risk,

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take the risk, I and youknow it's a draft. Everything's a
risk. But he fills that roleperfectly. If that's their way of getting
cheaper on the back end, especiallywhen you have two max players and Jalen
Brown and Jason Tatum, then okay, I understand it. I just wish

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that they win a little more highceiling than low floor floor, you know.
But other than that, I wouldsay I love the Sixers moves.
I thought they got winning players.The nets still reeling at least in this
draft from their James Hardened deal.And then the biggest winners I told you,

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Hoktua spit on that post draft gradeall that stuff. Biggest winners have
to be France in Yukon because bothhad four plus players taken. True.
True, Yeah, So what you'resaying a lot for Yukon is you're going
against the whole. But also it'spretty big for France too, because that's

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a big show out in the NBADraft, you know, for the country
itself to have that much representation comingin is actually pretty huge too. And
you had three top ten players fromFrance and two top ten players from Yukon.
So I would say, if Ihad to grade anybody, I'm great
in the country of France, givingthem an A. In Yukon, I'm
giving them and A because that wasspectacular to watch. Absolutely, it's very

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cool again to see those kids comeup, see those people come from overseas,
and again everyone be brought in forthis next upcoming NBA season. Now,
the last thing I wanted to talkto you about before we move on
to the next segment. It's theNBA teams that play defense few and between.
Yes, is the guy sliding onyour draft prospect board if he is

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not solid defender a bit in myeyes, But I know the NBA also
kind of sees things a little bitdifferently, But yeah, i'd say in
my eyes, yes, that wasone of the surprises I had about guys
like Dalton Konnect, who I've seenhim make winning plays I've seen him make
winning blocks. Now defensively, ishe a sieve. No, but he's

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not a great defender either. Thekid from Duke slid right out of the
first round because there was questions.Now, some say questions about his Mormon
girlfriend or whatever. This isn't areligious show. I'm not going to get
into that. But there was alsoquestions about does he have that dog in
him? Now. I watched himplay for a majority of the year.

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I didn't see the dog in him, but I did also see a guy
that at times carried Duke. CarriedDuke as a young kid, a tall,
athletic kid. Now, is heever going to be a Mitchell Robinson
defending the inside? No? Butcould he eventually be solid enough as a

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rim protector. I believe so,And I think Utah Jazz are going to
be a perfect fit for him.They like to open it up offensively.
Defensively, that's really where I gotto see him get there. But that's
gonna come with time. He's gonnaadd muscle to his body, he's gonna
get bigger, and he's going tobe a better defender. He's got to

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be a better defender. If youwant to see plus minutes. I just
don't know how much your offensive ceilingwould outweigh your defensive floor. Mm hmm.
And I think for me it dependson fit. Like if the Knicks
ended up taking that risk and tryingto bring him in, we have enough

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defensive pieces around where he wouldn't bethat much of a defensive liability. Now,
we had the same issue with ObieToppin, but Obi Toppin's offense is
not nearly what I see Kyle Flapowski'sbeing, So for me particular, I
was shocked to see those two guys, Dalton and Kyle slide as far as

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they did, so for me,we're talking about defense in the NBA.
Really, yeah, that's very much. It's very of a critical in this
day and age, when considering mostof the star players especially are not recognized
as solid defenders or defensive players perse. They're mainly just score machines anyway.
So seeing players fall in the draftdue to quote unquote poor defensive play

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does seem a little by hypocritical,especially given what happened Round two, especially
especially and I know you're dying toget into it. We'll get into it
a little later and later in thesegments because I really want to talk some
baseball with you. One of thethings I love about doing the show with
you is the way that I amwith football and basketball. You are that

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plus some when it comes to baseball. So I love talking baseball with you.
And we share something in common,the Mets, So let's talk about it next