Point guards and other first-year players around the league are making impacts early this NBA season. Meanwhile Jordan Hill of the Knicks, the eigth overall pick from Arizona, can't get off the bench.
What a horrible draft choice by Donnie Walsh!
It is a sentiment that many Knicks fans are echoing, and on the surface it seems valid.
That's if you are in the habit of overreacting and defining a player's career after two weeks.
Mike D'Antoni, who has told me that Hill is "close" but "needs to get better" recently told reporters that Hill isn't better right now than the players ahead of him.
What did you say? But this team stinks! He can't play over Jared Jeffries!
Yes, I understand the dismay, but what fans should understand is that it takes much longer for big men to develop. We are talking about someone with great physical gifts who just needs more seasoning. He's a big part of the team's future.
Sure, Ty Lawson is playing well in Denver and, of course, Brandon Jennings is lighting it up (and losing, too) in Milwaukee. Fans believe that Mike D'Antoni's high-octane offense desperately needed an upgrade over Chris Duhon in a point-guard heavy draft. Several teams selected one in the first round, and that has many fans infuriated that Walsh missed out on one. Throw into the mix that the team's 2008 lottery pick, Danilo Gallinari, spent most of last season out with a back injury has many fans wondering, for the first time, if the Walsh/D'Antoni combo has what it takes to turn this franchise around.
I think it's safe to say that it will take more than just over a year and that when the team sits down at the table on July 1, they will be happy with what they walk away with as it relates to 2008 and 2009.
But let's look at this logically. Two weeks does not a career make, on either end of the spectrum. Channing Frye was a stud early in his career and had an All-Star ceiling. What happened?
Point guards, since birth, have the basketball surgically attached to their hands and have the foot speed to play right away, so expect them to move to the head of the class. A class, by the way, that has a can't-miss in Blake Griffin atop it, who is light years ahead of Hill. That's why he was taken seven spots ahead.
I've seen Hill in practice, and, at his best, he's exciting to watch. He still floats and doesn't have the polish on the block that you'd like, but he can knock down shots and finish around the rim.
He'll be fine.
The question becomes: Is it fair to knock the development of a player because were drafted ahead of another player?
Maybe. Ask Detroit, which took Darko Milicic over future Hall of Famers. But that was the second slot, not the eighth, and finding incredible, can't-misses there is not as easy as it would seem. But smart fans, maybe too-smart fans, saw this draft as one that Walsh had to get right because the team is without a 2010 selection. Many also think that in order to attract a superstar, the young players need to show they are ready to play.
It would appear that Hill could supplant fan anger target No. 1 Jared Jeffries in the lineup and not be worse, but there are only so many minutes to go around. Jeffries is a player the team needs to play so that Walsh can increase his trade value, so for now Hill will wait as that situation works itself out.
D'Antoni has been clear that he wants Hill to be in the rotation, but the time isn't now. If the team continues to struggle, how long can it keep its first round lottery pick on the bench?
When the fans have to endure players like Jennings and the other rookies already making an impact, it's even harder to ignore Hill as he collects DNP-CDs.
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