Knicks all-time NBA Draft bust starting 5
By Lior Lampert
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Knicks all-time NBA Draft bust starting 5: SF, Renaldo Balkman
Taken just nine spots ahead of Mardy Collins, the Knicks selected Renaldo Balkman with the 20th overall pick in the 2006 NBA Draft. The Knicks 2006 draft will forever go down as one of the worst nights in Knicks history and NBA Draft history in large part because of how badly Collins and Balkman's time in New York went.
Balkman spent his first two seasons with the Knicks before being traded to the Nuggets in 2008 and then traded back to the Knicks as part of the deal that helped the Knicks land Carmelo Anthony in 2011. In his first two seasons, Balkman was a liability on the offensive end of the floor. He shot 18.5 percent from 3 in his first season and just 8.3 percent from beyond the arc in his second campaign while shooting below 60 percent from the charity stripe.
Despite the offensive struggles, Balkman was drafted as a high-energy player with a relentless motor. But that never seemed to come to fruition given that Balkman failed to average more than 15.6 minutes per game in a season. He fell out of the rotation in Denver rather quickly after the team traded for him in 2008 and appeared in just 22 games after being dealt back to the Knicks in 2011.