By the time the ninth pick rolled around, it seemed like a foregone conclusion the New York Knicks were going to draft Kevin Knox. In Knox’s introductory press conference today, Knicks president Steve Mills confirmed that Knox’s competitiveness in workouts sealed the deal to bring him to New York.
“We wanted Kevin at the ninth pick,” Mills said. “We spent a lot of time with him, we spoke with the coaches down at Kentucky and watched him throughout the course of his career. We knew there was something special, not just about his basketball abilities — the length, the athleticism, his ability to play the game the way Coach [David] Fizdale wants to coach and the way the current NBA is going — but there’s also a competitiveness inside this kid that doesn’t show up all the time in his demeanor.