Assessing the '24-25 Knicks: Part II

Today we take a look at the backcourt.

Good morning! Let’s keep going with our (rudely interrupted) look back at last season with a deep dive into the backcourt.

As for last night’s Game 1, all I have to say is four letters: S.M.D.H.

Assessing the '24-25 Knicks: Part II

Our assessment schedule got interrupted a bit by the news of the week, but we’re still going to work our way through a comprehensive look back at all the key figures on this season’s Knicks. Of course, it’s worth noting that one of the two figures I wrote about in Part I (Thibs) is now gone. If someone from today’s article gets traded in the next 24 hours, I might need to put these on hiatus (or hastily write about someone else I’m desperate to be off the team).

Jalen Brunson

On paper, he’s the easiest person in the organization to assess (with the possible example of Casey Smith, the VP of Sports Medicine who they got from Dallas and who Brunson and many others praised for their outstanding work this year).

The stats and accolades speak for themselves: All-Star starter, 2nd Team All-NBA, Clutch Player of the Year, 10th in the league in scoring, a career high in assists per game, and a career high in efficiency¹ since he became a full-time starter. According to Cleaning the Glass, he’s the only player in the NBA this season who:

• had at least a 32 usage rate

• scored at least 122 points per 100 shot attempts

• turned the ball over on fewer than 10 percent of his possessions, and

• assisted on at least 30 percent of his team’s made shots when he was on the court

Is this cherry picking a bit? Sure. Shai-Gilgeous Alexander scored 128.5 points per 100 shot attempts (to JB’s 122.1) on a 36.6 usage rate (Brunson was at 32.4) while assisting on 29.9 percent of his team’s baskets (31.9 for Jalen) and turning the ball over 8.1 percent of the time (to 9.6 percent for JB).

But SGA was the freaking MVP. Aside from him, Jokic and Giannis, there was no player in the NBA who posted a combination of traditional and advanced individual statistics that were clearly superior to New York’s starting point guard.

In the postseason, he arguably got even better. His efficiency went down a bit, to 117.0 points per 100 shots, but that’s par for the course against postseason defenses, especially considering his increased usage (35.1, which barely trailed SGA and Donovan Mitchell among players who made it out of the second round). His assist and turnover rates remained virtually identical to his regular season numbers, and he finished conference play with nearly double the number of clutch baskets as the next closest player in the NBA (56 to Haliburton’s 31).

But that last number is also a bit deceiving. Brunson had as many clutch field goal attempts (43) as the next two highest volume clutch shooters combined (Hali with 22; SGA with 21). His overall clutch efficiency was fine despite shooting 39.5 percent from the field when you consider the 21 free throw attempts (18 makes) and 46 percent hit rate on twos, but the 4-for-15 on clutch threes stands out. Too often, it felt like the offense never got in gear and Brunson attempted to bail them out with the deep ball.

This gets us to the larger issue of JB’s postseason, which is reflective of Brunson’s ‘24-25 campaign as a whole.