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61 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.06.27)”
Having reviewed a bunch of scouting reports and videos, I actually love this pick. The best things to do at this spot is to either try to find a young player with upside or an older player who has the physical tools to fill a needed role (e.g. Sims, Huk)
At 20 years old, Diawara has some features I really like. Great length. Good motor. Can finish with both hands. Can dribble, pass and shoot a bit, not totally raw. Possibly fills a position of need. Looks like he might have been a monster had he played in the NCAA.
As with all prospects, it all depends on whether he develops beyond what he is right now. He looks to have a floor of Precious Achiuwa, which is pretty good for this draft slot. As to ceiling, his physical profile reminds me of a poor man’s Pascal Siakam. Hey, you never know! But at least he’s a kid you can dream on, rather than a totally raw, or undersized, or non-athletic, or non-shooting 24yo.
Nah. It’s clear we INCINERATED the 50th pick by turning it into the 51st pick! Leon is a horrible GM!!!!
I can’t sweat the 51st pick. Or the 50th. Chances of him being better than Precious seem quite slim and I know that didn’t feel like a high bar this season. But fun to have another guy to vaguely dream on.
I’d be shocked if he ever plays for us though.
that is kind of the bar for me whether he ever gets on the floor for us for even 5-8 minutes at a time if not then no point in taking him or anyone else really
All seriousness I think taking him at 51 does make sense. The idea that we can find someone who is “NBA ready” at the 50th or 51st spot is ridiculous. So might as well take a swing on a young prospect that might pay off in a few years when our core is getting older.
Yeah, I came on to complain about getting a poor man’s Precious with that pick, but I can’t really muster the energy. Would have found it more fun to get a poor man’s Novak instead, but whatever. May Z-Man’s rose-tinted glasses prove accurate!
I think Taylor Jenkins could get a lot out of this 51st pick. 😉
And speaking of such, in response to Edwards’ latest (and he’s starting to annoy me with his click-bait-y articles), hard no on Shroder (just never liked him, a good backup guard isn’t a bad idea but I would have serious problems rooting for the guy), and sure on Kennard (who is Novak incarnate, although he falls into our historic giant pool of midsized wings at 6’5″). Anyone who averages .438 for his career from three (with two years leading the league) can play for my team.
Firing Masai the morning after the draft is crazy
it really was not all that long ago that we were all salivating over the idea of maybe getting masai to new york
Wow, Masai out the day after the draft; echoes of Phil Jackson there.
Ever since we fleeced Masai by sticking him with RJ I knew his days were numbered. 😉
I think the goal was to trade picks for players and reverse whatever the hell he was doing since trading OG, Siakam and VanVleet.
One of my memories of Masai was Dolan vetoing the Shumpert for Lowry deal because he was still pissed about the Bargnani fleecing.
Would have changed the arc of our franchise.
If you’re going to take an upside swing, then a 6’9″ ball handling athlete with a wide body isn’t a bad option. NBA.com’s draft profile lists his wingspan at 7’4″ and his standing reach at 9’2″. If he attended the combine, that would tie for 8th biggest wingspan and 8th highest standing reach, tied for the highest standing reach among non Cs and only an inch shorter than 7’1″ Yang.
Vecenie had him at 79 on his big board, and it probably gets real wishy washy that late in the draft.
Still, I can’t help but feel we just Rick Brunson’d Pacome Dadiet.
Maybe they really like Masai’s draft record… or maybe they really hate Alijah Martin
I assume we want this kid to go back to France for the year?
I’ve read this guy listed at everything between 6’7” and 6’10”. Are scouts just really bad at converting centimetres?
But sure, seems like a fine flier at 50/51. What annoys me is that they it looks like they only researched Dadiet’s friends & family plan for this one… just take BPA!
He could probably benefit from some burn with the Westchester Knicks, it’d be nice to have him on hand in case he’s less raw than assumed.
ummmmmmm masai did not trade fred vanvleet houston signed him as a free agent
Holy s***! Ujiri out as Raptors President!
really no idea that occurred
Allowing him to leave for nothing is even worse.
Yes and we valued getting cheap players over good players, passing up potential steals like Collier, Filipowski, and Wells so we could get Kolek, Dadiet, and McCullar for less money.
What we did with the 50th pick is inconsequential but what we’ve done with all our picks from 2020 to last night is the primary reason we are stuck in the second tier instead of being in the top.
That we still haven’t learned the value of taking a swing after all this time just shows there is no learning taking place. Leon is more rigid than Thibs.
agree with hubert completely on not kicking the tires on filipowski or collier altho i do think that kolek has a chance to be a decent backup in this league given appropriate development and playing time
“What annoys me is that they it looks like they only researched Dadiet’s friends & family plan for this one… just take BPA!”
Ess-dog, not sure if you are being facetious, but the fact that Dadiet knows him is part of why I like the pick. As EB says, ranking picks that low for BPA is pretty wishy washy. Having gone to the French-raw-kid well once again tells me that they like Dadiet and have confidence in whatever scout recommended him.
I’m assuming Masai has no interest in being Leon Rose’s deputy but it couldn’t hurt to ask.
I have made the mistake of investing emotionally in late second round picks before and I will not do it again. For a number of obvious reasons, one of them being I didn’t know who he was before we made the pick, it’s not the pick I would’ve made, but at #51, sure, see if a guy who isn’t that good at basketball but has a lot of physical gifts can figure out basketball.
That said…
This strikes me as incredibly unlikely. Precious Achiuwa was a first-round pick who was great in the NCAA when he was younger than Diawara. I would say his floor is “never plays in the NBA” and Achiuwa is closer to his ceiling.
And would Rose want to let Ujiri get the touch down on the five yard line? Some teams have a President and a GM, right?
Maybe Knick’s management has a higher opinion of Dadiet than the consensus here, or Dadiet, who must have played a lot with Diawara thinks he is a real diamond in the rough.
Non-combine measurements tend to vary a lot. Shoes vs no shoes sometimes is the difference. Maybe some rounding discrepancies.
Fwiw, the NBA profile has him at 6’9″ in shoes and 6’8″ out of shoes.
I’d still give Masai the keys to any of my favorite teams in a second, but I suppose it’s only fair to point out it’s been a while since he did anything particularly impressive. The Bane and Mikal trades make his OG trade look…underwhelming, to say the least.
He leaves his successor with some intriguing players but a very unclear path forward, though Murray-Boyles is one of my favorite players in this draft. Seems like the bet was on Barnes becoming all-NBA level, which could still happen but thus far has not.
The penny pinching in the draft last year allowed us to do the KAT trade, i think that’s defensible.
is it tho because now we are already talking about ways to ship kat out of town
Wrong. Some fans, who aren’t happy with JUST making the ECF, are talking about this. Fans talk about ways to trade their best players all the time. That doesn’t mean Leon is made he got KAT or it was a bad move to get KAT.
I guess we should have just kept Randle and Divo and played 2/3 of the season with no starting Center and then have to resign Randle to a max contract this off season. That certainly would have been better than getting an 8 time all star who has been to the conference finals 2 years in a row on 2 different teams.
if you’ve made mistakes and feel that the justice system didn’t adequately punish you, it’s possible to watch three hours of unedited mohamed diawara video
https://youtu.be/3FLZMwYvU1Q?si=FRqflsL4eeocOnov
although i surely see the aesthetic resemblance, i don’t think the homerun scenario is in the siakam archetype, or anyone else who thrives off body control and balance. i would peg it more like a gerald wallace or al farouq aminu type. floor for a 51st pick pretty much has to be guy who doesn’t have a nba career at all a la sekou doumbouya or 100 other guys we’ve never heard of as opposed to a precious type who sticks for thousands of minutes.
thing that always gets me about watching these guys who aren’t really thought to be prospects is how much shit you can have going for you and still not be a prospect. this guy has the wingspan of greg oden, runs like obi, takes crossover pull-up 3s and throws blind cross court jump passes to the corner out of the post! but it’s still probably not enough.
Man, I feel terrible for RJ Luis. He should be practicing with the Kansas Jayhawks rn making $3 mil instead of signing a 2-way with Utah for $500k.
I made it 5 shots in and I need a breather…
it is still probably not enough to have all of those skills because of who he is playing with and who he is playing against
the thing that seemed so strange to me about the post kawhi raptors is how masai didn’t seem to really work hard to bring in a reasonable 5 for two and a half years once gasol was done, when the personnel was actually screaming for it. then it seemed like he panicked by paying a shockingly good pick to bring back poeltl when he was about to expire. but price aside, i still thought that would work okay. and they were plus 7 per 100 in the 400 something minutes all four guys managed to play together in 22-23 post trade. and that with what i though were some weird choices by nurse.
they did blow that play in game against the bulls by imploding in the fourth quarter and shooting 18-36 from the line. but that was the end of their sample together bc fvv was gone in the summer and it was plus 7!
Drafting a 20 year old Euro draft and stash with the raw skills but physical tools/measurements of Dadiet and Diawara is THE definition of taking a swing.
Parfois, je pense que tu es trop investi dans ton propre recit personnel pour voir la verite plus large.
The Athletic Bounce:
Maybe the Spurs’ other role players like Devin Vassell, Keldon Johnson or Jeremy Sochan now become more tradeable to put a bigger player next to Victor Wembanyama?
There were big boards last year that had Kolek, Dadiet, and McCullar going ahead of where we drafted them. It wasn’t some cockamamie scheme to draft Hansen Yang 35 picks early.
il est faux daffirmer que quiconque ici a une histoire personnelle cest une blague bien sur
unsure as to why we could not have signed a 2 way like this: https://www.maizenbrew.com/2025/6/27/24447275/nba-draft-vlad-goldin-michigan-wolverines-college-basketball-dusty-may
My sister went to FAU so I have watched amounts of Vlad Goldin basketball that would make a normal person shudder. He’s enormous and fun, but not worth shedding tears over.
less about goldin specifically and more about not kicking tires on available free agents who could see the floor watch goldin become another nikola jovic for spo tho
I said this last summer, Ujiri was toast. Leon got him.
I loved Masai but he’s been mediocre for a long time. Trading for RJ was crazy.
oh no owen look what you probably did now
No, it is not. It is the definition of wasting your pick on someone you don’t have to pay and will never have on your roster. See: Rokas Jokubaitis.
So if Diawara takes a big step forward in the euro league next year and now looks like a legit NBA player, Leon’s just going to shrug his shoulders and not bring him over?
So what about the dude we got from the KAT trade who is going to play in summer league? All a ruse by Leon? He’s never going to give him a chance?
Did Dadiet take up a roster spot last year or nah?
Just say you don’t like the pick, man.
And btw you’ll never guess the one news outlet that reported the Knicks were interested in Diawara before the draft. It was the Strickland. Because that’s how you reward media who publishes your self-written propaganda.
Who give a shit? Leon is the only GM in the league who has contacts in the sports media world that can sometimes push their message. OH THE HORRORS!
I don’t like 5 years of incompetent work with draft picks.
And I especially don’t like the philosophy that every pick and trade reveals: “we don’t expect to be able to succeed making this selection, so we’re either going to trade it for lesser value or minimize the cap consequence of our incompetence.”
If Leon can’t corral a bigger outlet than Strickland to publish his puff pieces, we should probably fire him on those grounds
Masai really dropped the ball. It turns out GMing is much harder when not trading with the Knicks or having the Spurs gift you the best player in the association.
CAA has major clients at national media outlets, Leon is not planting stories in the fucking Strickland. Come on man. He’s getting Ramona Shelbourne to put his Thibs firing spin on the front of ESPN, not some obscure blog nobody reads
Oh he’s put his stuff on ESPN, too. He’s been very busy this summer. That’s what happens when people begin to see your incompetence. You gotta spin, spin, spin. Flood the airwaves with PR. Don’t want them talking about how embarrassing your coaching search has been or about the bind you find yourself in now after you panic traded the whole farm last summer for the wrong guys.
I just don’t see this level of draft incompetence that you see.
IQ, Grimes, McBride, Huk l, Sims and Kolek were all decent to good picks for where they were picked.
Obi was a clear whiff. Then he punted a few picks/kicked them down the road to make space for Brunson and IHart.
The Mikal trade, IMO, isn’t really indicative to draft incompetence. Everyone knew the plan was to go “all in” on a trade with our surplus of picks to get a great player. It’s just that Leon miscalculated on the player. Though Mikal could still surprise us this season.
Hubie, please don’t leave your tin foil hat on all summer, especially if you’re going to be in Florida. We’re going to have some very hot days coming up, and it will dehydrate you very quickly.
And I like that about you. Genuinely. I wish I could look at our draft picks and see genuine attempts of a good process to find players that could play for the Knicks.
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