Giants’ Joe Schoen makes late move to get Deonte Banks

The NFL draft board for most of Thursday night looked like it was cooperating beautifully with the Giants’ needs.

It looked like they might have the pick of the litter among some of the top receivers and cornerbacks, as most teams were ignoring the two positions the Giants needed most.

Then, as the first round inched toward pick No. 19, the board began to spin out of the Giants’ control, and they found it necessary to make a move and trade up one spot.

They traded fifth- and seventh-round picks to the Jaguars to swap pick No. 25 for No. 24, which they used to nab Maryland cornerback Deonte Banks.

“The way the board was breaking down, we were getting depleted [in options],’’ Giants general manager Joe Schoen said. “This was a player a player we liked and we decided, ‘Don’t get cute, let’s go get him.’ There were receivers going off the board, and lot of corners were going. Banks was a guy we liked, spent a lot of time with and decided to go get.’’

If the move up one slot didn’t come across as a big deal to the casual fan, the look on Giants defensive coordinator Wink Martindale’s face told the story: The Giants got their man, landed a player they coveted.

Inside the team’s draft room, Martindale was seen on TV hugging Schoen, looking like a boy on Christmas morning who’d just been given his first bicycle.

“You know Wink’s defense, and [Banks] fits his system to a tee,’’ Schoen said with a smile. “He’s a prototype from a size standpoint, he’s athletic, physical and he can run.’’

Giants head coach Brian Daboll, whose beloved Rangers were smoked by the Devils in Game 5 on Thursday night at the Prudential Center, had a much better night in the draft room.

“You can never have enough good corners,’’ Daboll said. “It’s a passing league, and we’re in a tough division. Banks is a tall, press man-to-man corner who we had graded high, and we’re happy to have him.’’

As the draft approached the Giants’ No. 25 overall pick, no receivers had been taken in the first 19 picks. The Giants are receiver-poor.

Catch up with the entire list of Giants picks from the 2023 NFL Draft, including round-by-round analysis.

Then came a run on receivers in picks 20-23 — with Ohio State’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba, TCU’s Quentin Johnston, Boston College’s Zay Flowers and USC’s Jordan Addison going consecutively to the Seahawks, Chargers and Ravens, respectively.

There were three cornerbacks taken in the first 23 picks, and the Giants didn’t want to take a chance on losing out on Banks.

This is what you have 10 draft picks for, which is what the Giants began this draft with.

Draft capital allows a team to maneuver, and maneuver the Giants did, for a young player who appears to be a freak athlete, scoring the highest athleticism score of any cornerback prospect over the past decade — recording a time of 4.35 seconds in the 40-yard dash, a 42-inch vertical jump and an 11-foot, four-inch broad jump.

Also available when the Giants took Banks was Penn State cornerback Joey Porter Jr., outside linebacker Nolan Smith from Georgia, and the two top tight end prospects, Notre Dame’s Michael Mayer and Utah’s Dalton Kincaid.

We’re in Year 2 of the Schoen Giants Build right now, and Thursday night’s first round was a big part of the process for the second-year general manager.

Year 1 went rather well, considering the Giants enjoyed a “look what we found’’ season of surprise (a surprise even to themselves) by going 9-7-1 and making the playoffs in a year expected to be a tear-down and rebuild of a roster that had produced 22 combined wins in the previous five seasons.

Year 2 figures to give us a better indication of the kind of team Schoen plans on building.

Get the complete list of first-round 2023 NFL Draft picks, with analysis and more from the New York Post.

A year ago, Schoen attacked the team’s lack of pass rush by drafting Kayvon Thibodeaux with the No. 5 overall pick, and he addressed the offensive line with tackle Evan Neal at No. 7.

Both players, though not without growing pains, showed enough to lead you to believe they’ll be long-term contributors.

Mike Tannenbaum, currently an NFL analyst for ESPN who’s a former Jets general manager, has lived what Schoen is living right now.

He joined a downtrodden Jets team that had faster-than-expected success then tried to cultivate that success into the long term.

This is exactly what Schoen is trying to do with the Giants.

“In 1996, the Jets won one game and spent more money than anybody, and in ’97 coach [Bill] Parcells and coach [Bill] Belichick came in and I was hired with a bunch of other people,’’ Tannenbaum recalled to The Post on Thursday. “In ’97, we went 9-7, and in ’98 we were in the AFC Championship game. So I don’t think there’s any truth to tear-downs. It’s all about culture and great coaching, and I think Brian Daboll did a great job last year.

“You can win for today and develop for tomorrow, and that’s what you’re supposed to do,’’ Tannenbaum added. “I don’t think rebuilds are supposed to take many years or anything close to that. That’s a huge misnomer. I lived it in the formative years of my career.’’