Down came the New York Knicks and washed the Spida out.
So claims past and present Madison Square Garden resident Rick Pitino, who spoke about his attempt to alter Knicks history on the latest episode of the “Roommates Show” podcast.
Recalling the 2017 NBA draft, Pitino told fellow MSG stars Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, alongside their co-host Matt Hillman, that he lobbied the team to draft his Louisville protege, Donovan Mitchell, with the eighth overall choice.
“I called the Knicks … I called them and said, ‘Listen, take my guy Donovan Mitchell. He’s going to kill it. Don’t pay attention to what you think some of his weaknesses are, he’s going to kill it. Take him,'” Pitino, the current men’s head coach at St. John’s, recalled to the trio. “They said ‘no, I don’t know if we can take him that high.'”
Mitchell, a New York native, was fresh off a two-year stint with Pitino at Louisville when he declared for the 2017 draft. At the time, the Knicks were looking to resolve long-lasting backcourt issues and were picking eighth after going 31-51 the year before. Mitchell had joined Pitino in 2015, turning down a chance to play with Brunson and Hart at Villanova.
Unfortunately for New York, the Knicks did not heed the advice of Pitino, who previously served at the metropolitan helm for two seasons (1987-89). Pitino recalled that the Knicks instead opted for the services of “Frank Nicoletti,” which should be a sign of how the career of the actual pick, Frank Ntilikina, went.
“Just think about that: they could’ve had Donovan at [eight],” Pitino said. “They couldn’t take him, it was too high, but they took Frank.”
Mitchell heard his name called five picks later, when the Denver Nuggets brought him in with the 13th pick before he was traded to the Utah Jazz later that night. Mitchell would become Utah’s franchise face for five seasons, all of which ended in the playoffs. Utah would even post the Western Conference’s best record in 2020-21, and Mitchell became one of the most talked-about backcourt names in basketball.
Conversely, Ntilikina never established a lasting presence in New York, averaging just 5.5 points and 2.7 assists over four seasons in the Big Apple. Ntilikina played two more seasons with the Dallas Mavericks, the first of which was alongside current Knicks star Jalen Brunson, before falling off the NBA radar and having his last Association action being a five-game stint with the Charlotte Hornets in 2024.
Passing on Mitchell served as an appropriately macabre ending to the Knicks’ Phil Jackson era. The embattled 13-time champion mutually parted ways with the team less than a week after the draft, ending a brutal term that also featured transactional misfires like the massive contract afforded to former Chicago Bulls star Joakim Noah.
Since then, Mitchell has frequently surfaced in the New York rumor mill, with things reaching a fever pitch when the rebuilding Jazz shopped his services during the summer of 2022.
The Knicks were widely viewed as the favorites to land them, but the Jazz eventually bartered with the Cleveland Cavaliers instead. New York’s backcourt work has since been headlined by the talents of another 2022 mover in Brunson, who guided the Knicks to a six-game defeat of Mitchell and the Cavs in the opening round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.
While the Knicks don’t remember the 2017 draft fondly, as drafting Ntilikina also meant passing on future All-Stars like Bam Adebayo and Jarrett Allen, it wasn’t a total loss: the final pick of the first round yielded Hart, who began his career with the Los Angeles Lakers before joining the Knicks at the 2023 trade deadline and has since been a difference maker for the Knickerbockers.
