{"id":636840,"date":"2026-03-03T15:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T15:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/636840\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T15:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T15:47:12","slug":"mohamed-diawara-is-another-knicks-2nd-round-pick-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/636840\/","title":{"rendered":"Mohamed Diawara is another Knicks 2nd-round pick hit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe the Knicks<\/a> should only horde second-round picks, because they can\u2019t seem to miss as the NBA Draft goes into its later hours.<\/p>\n

Case in point: The Knicks took Mohamed Diawara 51st overall last June<\/a>, and it\u2019s already inexplicable a player with his skill set and potential fell to New York, a team in desperate need of his talents in a playoff push.<\/p>\n

The Knicks have already established the late-first and second round as their draft day bread and butter: In 2021, the Leon Rose-led front office traded the rights to Jeremiah Robinson-Earl \u2014 who is not on an active NBA roster \u2014 at pick No. 32 to the Oklahoma City Thunder for the rights to international prospect Rokas Jokubaitis at 34 and Miles McBride at 36. At pick No. 58 in the same draft, the Knicks selected Jericho Sims, who didn\u2019t pan out under Tom Thibodeau but found a second opportunity in Milwaukee. In 2024, the Knicks whiffed on their first-round pick Pacome Dadiet but made up for it selecting Tyler Kolek at 34 and Ariel Hukporti at 56.<\/p>\n

In 2025, the Knicks didn\u2019t have a first-round pick. They traded it to Brooklyn as part of the Mikal Bridges deal. But Diawara is playing first-round minutes, and in Sunday\u2019s 25-point victory over the San Antonio Spurs<\/a>, he shot 13 3s in 14 minutes. The rookie made just four of those attempts, but his willingness to let the three ball fly kept the Spurs honest.<\/p>\n

It also kept him on the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love it. Every time the ball touches his hands, I\u2019m yelling at him \u2018shoot it.\u2019 I want that kid to stay aggressive. We all know how raw, talented he is,\u201d said Knicks sharpshooter Landry Shamet. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy, he\u2019s what, 19? I\u2019m happy for him to have a game like tonight. That\u2019s a tough job. a lot of people think it\u2019s [easy] \u2014 \u2018Oh he\u2019s wide open all the time \u2014 but it\u2019s weird when you look up and nobody\u2019s guarding you. Teams have to choose what they want to give up. Mo being in that position, I think he handled it great tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diawara is averaging just 3.1 points and 1.2 rebounds per game as a rookie. Those are unassuming numbers that won\u2019t garner any consideration in Rookie of the Year or All-Rookie Team honors at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

Yet on average, Diawara is playing just 7.5 minutes a night. He has played 15 or more minutes in 11 games this season and is averaging 8.9 points on 43% shooting from three-point range with a plus-minus of plus-64 in those games on the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst thing I would say is Mo is not afraid. I\u2019ve said this to you guys before, for a young guy, I\u2019ve thrown him out there in games \u2014 to start \u2014 on national TV, and he didn\u2019t bat an eye. And he might start three games in a row, then he might not play the fourth game, he doesn\u2019t bat an eye. He is the most confident young man I\u2019ve been around,\u201d said head coach Mike Brown. \u201cAnd he\u2019s got a chance to be not good, but really good. And he\u2019s working extremely hard on his shooting, like you saw tonight.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut confidence wise, you don\u2019t have to worry about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second-round track history is a net-positive for a team strapped for first-round draft assets. The Knicks may not have access to their own firsts, but they are wealthy in seconds. Their most recent is enjoying the opportunity of a lifetime for a championship contender.<\/p>\n

\u201cMo, really talented man and understanding the game at a young age,\u201d said Bridges. \u201cJust keep shooting it. I think he even knew, just getting his feet set, I don\u2019t think he\u2019s probably been guarded when no one\u2019s guarding him probably in a long time. So just getting adjusted to that and that situation just having his feet ready, but he doesn\u2019t lack confidence at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe the Knicks should only horde second-round picks, because they can\u2019t seem to miss as the NBA Draft…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,304,23817,17348,6,12,1136,191,3810,3806],"class_list":{"0":"post-636840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-knicks","10":"tag-kristian-winfield","11":"tag-mohamed-diawara","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-draft","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-knicks","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkknicks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}