Stephen Curry Gives Knicks Another Painful Reminder
The results of the NBA Finals have often been authored by former members of the Knicks. This latest one could be decided by a hypothetical one.
By now, anyone even remotely associated with Knicks basketball is aware that the team was agonizingly close to drafting Curry, the renowned sharpshooter set to partake in his sixth NBA Finals as a member of the Golden State Warriors. New York held the eighth pick in the 2009 NBA Draft one year after Curry burst onto the national basketball scene by guiding mid-major Davidson on an improbable run to the NCAA Tournament's quarterfinal round. At the time, the Knicks were led by coach Mike D'Antoni, whose previous offensive success in Phoenix (namely with fellow point guard Steve Nash) had many believing that Manhattan was an ideal destination.
Golden State, however, took Curry one pick before the Knicks went on the clock, leaving New York to select Arizona's Jordan Hill. The power forward lasted only 25 games with his original employers, as he and Jared Jeffries were sent to Houston in a three-team deal that briefly brought Tracy McGrady to New York. Hill would play eight NBA seasons, including three with the Los Angeles Lakers
In a move that won't make these Finals any easier for Knicks fans, Curry himself admitted that he was one of many who thought he had a blue and orange future in a press conference before Game 1 of the Finals against the Boston Celtics (9 p.m. ET, ABC).
Curry was asked about getting drafted by Golden State. At that time, his knowledge of Warriors basketball was limited to the team's famed 2007 playoff upset over Dallas (the franchise's lone playoff series win between 1992 and 2012) and competition with guard Monta Ellis. Thus, he partly shifted his focus toward a New York future.
"When I got drafted, I thought I was going to New York," Curry said. "(I) didn't really have Golden State on the radar at all."
Since those fateful selections, reminders of Curry's denied destiny to downtrodden Knicks fans have been commonplace near the draft, as well as during his many trips to the NBA Finals. An endless list of accolades, including a pair of league MVP awards, has done little to soothe the blow, even if there was little the Knicks could have done.
This isn't the first time that the idea of Curry with the Knicks has surfaced: a May 2020 report from the New York Post declared that then-Warriors general manager ignored requests from both Curry's father Dell (himself a former NBA veteran) and his agent to pass on Curry in the seventh slot, opening the door to destiny. The younger Curry also admitted that he "wanted to go to New York" in the eighth spot in a December 2021 interview on Showtime.
Alas, the ninth pick also came back to haunt the Knicks: shortly after Hill's selection, the Toronto Raptors selected future All-Star DeMar DeRozan out of USC.
The Knicks currently own two picks (Nos. 11 and 42) in the 2022 NBA Draft set to be held in Brooklyn on June 23.
