Renaldo Balkman is a golden god

If there was one good thing you could say about Isiah Thomas, it was that he could draft decently.

Well, last night Zeke attempted to eliminate any possible positivity on his resume, and he was so determined to concentrate on his task, he did it all from a secure location 30 minutes away.

The Knicks’ first pick in last night’s draft, Renaldo Balkman of South Carolina, had each and every one of the ESPN guys using words like “shocked” and “speechless”.

The crowd was surprisingly tame, probably because nobody had any idea who the guy was. That was actually their quiet point of the night – David Stern made note several times of the “rowdy” crowd on-hand for the draft.

The 6-foot-8 Balkman led South Carolina to consecutive NIT titles, winning MVP honors this season at Madison Square Garden. He averaged a career-best 9.6 points and 6.3 rebounds last season as a junior and was selected to the Southeastern Conference all-tournament team.

[Isiah] Thomas wasn’t put off by the fans’ reaction.

“I’ve been in sports all my life and I’ve been called a lot of bad names growing up on the West Side of Chicago, and being in an arena where people jeer and shout and say bad things about you, that’s all right, that’s what sports is all about,” he said. “You take the good with the bad. That’s what it’s all about.”

We love how Zeke always falls back on his tough childhood as some sort of qualification for his various jobs. Does he put that on his resume before or after “bankrupted CBA”?

The best was how Greg Anthony said Isiah should’ve taken sliding PG Marcus Williams simply so that people would say nice things about him for a few weeks.

Back to Renaldo, though. Spike Lee says he’s a sleeper, so there you go. We actually feel kinda bad for the guy – it’s not his fault he’ll be used as the Official Symbol of Isiah Thomas’s Ineptitude around here for the next six months.