NBA
2024 NBA Draft: Knicks could benefit from Alex Sarr falling to Wizards at No. 2
The Knicks may have just won another draft day move.
The Washington Wizards selected standout French prospect Alex Sarr with the No. 2 overall pick of the 2024 NBA Draft on Wednesday.
Sarr was projected to go No. 1 overall before flat-out refusing to workout for the Atlanta Hawks, who ultimately selected Zaccharie Risacher at the top of the draft.
Which means the Wizards came up on a player who shouldn’t have been available second, and as a result, the Knicks may receive an additional first-round pick in 2025 they weren’t expecting to convey next season.
That’s because the Knicks own the Wizards’ top-10 protected first-round pick in 2025.
The Wizards initially traded a lottery-protected 2023 first-round pick to the Houston Rockets in the Russell Westbrook deal of 2020. The pick had loosening protections following years it did not convey: top-12 protected in 2024, top-10 in 2025 and top-eight in 2026, otherwise becoming a pair of second-round picks in 2026 and 2027.
The Rockets traded the Wizards pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder for the rights to Alperen Sengun, and the Thunder then dealt three protected first-round picks from the Wizards, Detroit Pistons and Denver Nuggets to the Knicks for Ousmane Dieng, the No. 11 pick in the 2022 NBA Draft.
Dieng has logged minimal minutes on a Thunder team angling to compete for a championship.
The Pistons pick is top-13 protected in 2025, top-11 protected in 2026 and top-nine protected in 2027 before becoming a pair of second-round picks in 2027 and 2028.
The Knicks traded the Denver pick to the Charlotte Hornets as part of the three-team deal that helped offload Kemba Walker’s salary in 2022.
The Pistons selected Ron Holland II fifth-overall in Wednesday’s first round, but he is not expected to lift Detroit from its standing as the worst team in then NBA.
SARR COULD MOVE THE NEEDLE
The Wizards finished with the second-worst record in all of basketball last season with a 15-67 record, but Sarr’s arrival could signal a turn in the tide for a team that fell way below expectations in a disappointing season last year.
Sarr joins two capable franchise cornerstones in Kyle Kuzma and Jordan Poole. Both Kuzma and Poole have won NBA titles, Kuzma with the 2020 Los Angeles Lakers, and Poole as a member of the 2022 Golden State Warriors.
The Wizards also made a coaching change, moving head coach Wes Unseld Jr. into a front office role and replacing him with former Nets assistant Brian Keefe.
Washington is now a potential threat to move ever-so slightly up the Eastern Conference standings, especially given the Nets are all-out tanking after trading Mikal Bridges to the Knicks.
It’s not a given.
After all, the Wizards will want to prevent this pick from conveying and could easily do so by intentionally throwing games — tanking — toward the bottom of the standings.
Yet if Sarr — a seven-foot forward who can shoot the three, defend multiple positions and put the ball on the floor — is the generational talent some proclaim him to be, then he could lift the Wizards from the bottom of the standings into the middle.
Which is exactly where the Knicks want the Wizards for the 2025 first-round pick to convey.
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