Celebrating the Knicks’ absence from tonight’s draft lottery

Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports There will be none of this tonight, which represents a step in the right direction.The NBA draft lottery is usually among the most important days of each year for the Knicks, a franchise that has finished over .500 only four times in the last 20 seasons. This year, though, we emphasize “usually” in that sentence, because New York played its way out of the lottery by making the playoffs.

The lottery begins at 8:30 pm and is followed by Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals between the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Clippers. Under normal circumstances, right about now, Knicks fans across the globe are talking themselves into the idea that the Knicks will defy…