Briefing: July 5
Summer League is here!
Good Afternoon,
There’s Knicks basketball tonight!
RJ Barrett on playing against his friend, Zion Williamson: “It’s going to be fun playing against my friend. I’ll probably going to get switched on him, but we’ll see what the game gives.” [NY Post]
Summer League Schedule:
July 5th vs Pelicans at 9:30PM / ESPN
July 7th vs Phoenix at 9:30PM / ESPN
July 9th vs Toronto at 9:30PM / NBATV
July 10th vs Lakers at 9:30PM / ESPN2
TBD: Qualifying tournament and consolation rounds
Summer League Roster:
Other happenings
Mitchell Robinson has been invited to join the Select Team at USA Basketball training camp, per Tim Bontemps.
Mitch is excited about RJ Barrett: “The kid can play. He's got heart. He goes at everybody strong. If he's a rookie and he's doing that, I think he'll have a great career ahead of him.” [SNY]
Ignas Brazdeikis was one of two players the Knicks were willing to trade up for in the second round, per Marc Berman. We don’t know who that second player would have been. The Knicks previously they tried to trade up for denied it was Bol Bol.
Amare Stoudemire is reportedly trying to make an NBA comeback. And the Knicks are reportedly one of the teams who is giving him a private workout.
What this means: I wouldn’t break your STAT jerseys out of storage. It’s a longshot to expect Amare to return to the NBA, but as the Knicks continue to try to turn the perception of their franchise around, an easy win would be to give a former player a private workout. This helps when you want the player to talk favorably about the organization.
Kevin Durant was open to teaming up with Kawhi Leonard rather than Kryie Irving, at least on the court, but Leonard would only entertain that possibility with the Clippers, while Durant was set on doing it in New York, per Ric Bucher.
Getting ready for SL with Jonathan Macri
By the time you read this, yours truly will already be staking claim to a seat in the Thomas and Mack Center, waiting patiently to see the most anticipated matchup maybe in the entire history of Summer League. Possibly with a cold beverage in hand.
As my first foray in to the annual Vegas tradition, it feels like I couldn't have picked a better time. When I originally booked tickets months ago, I wondered whether I'd be watching a skeleton roster of players who would never see an NBA court - something that would've surely happened if the Knicks had traded for Anthony Davis, which itself is something that only would have happened if New York knew for certain that a certain someone else was coming too.
Alas, Davis is in LA, KD is in Brooklyn, and the most exciting 25-and-under core the Knicks have had in a generation will be taking the court. With the collection of young talent they have, it's no surprise that they're the odds-on favorite to win the Summer League chip. It also won't be a surprise that whenever the regular season odds come out, they'll probably be in the bottom five.
God bless Knick fans for our unbridled enthusiasm, but the reality is that despite the new additions, this team is likely going to struggle very much. Always remember: the NBA is just as much about what you take off the table as what you put on it. Julius Randle, for instance, is as dangerous with the ball in his hands from 15 feet and in (and apparently now from 24 feet and out) as all but a few guys in the league. Awesome. It only matters if he doesn't give it all back on defense (or on offense; his 3.4 TOV/36 needs some cleaning up as well).
The only way the team is going to exceed expectations is if cetain players improve in a few key areas. Randle's defense might be the most important swing skill on the entire team. For Dennis Smith Jr., it's 50/50 between his point of attack defense and long-range shooting. Bobby Portis needs to improve as a ballhandler/passer (he has a dead even AST/TO ratio for his career) and - you guessed it - his defense. The list goes on.
So yes, this team is probably going to give up a lot of points, especially given the sheer number of neophytes who will be getting time. Mitchell Robinson might take another leap, but he's only one man with (allegedly) just two arms. He can only cover up so many mistakes.
Keeping that in mind, let's take a look at one offensive skill we hope to see from each of the primary figures from New York's Summer League roster:
Mitchell Robinson: The short roll. Long range shooting is the answer on most people's minds here, but there's no way Mitch is going to go from taking a total of three shots from outside 10 feet to consistently bombing threes. Maybe it happens a few years down the line, but for right now, no one should count on this being a thing that happens with any regularity. What can and should start to happen is Big Meech dipping his toe in the playmaking waters. If he shares the floor with Julius Randle, the safe bet is that a lot of that time will be spent as a screener for his new frontcourt partner so as to avoid taking up Orange J's real estate down low (a concept touched on in this recent piece by SNY's David Vertsberger). Sometimes he'll be able to take a dump off and go right to the rim, but defenses will likely test his passing ability early and often. If that's the case, Mitch needs to show some progress in the short roll, which is when the roll man gets the ball after setting a screen and makes a quick pass to an open shooter, often around the arc. This singular ability is what helped Draymond Green be such a vital cog in the Warriors' offense for the past five years. If we see this even a couple of time from Robinson over the next 10 days, it counts as significant progress.
Kevin Knox: Dish it, baby. Last season, Knox didn't do much of anything particularly well outside of being a beast in transition and looking respectable from long range. Luckily, these Knicks will run like the wind and fire away, so those two skills should come in handy (and a jump from 34% to ~37-38% on long balls would do wonders for the team's spacing). Regardless, Knox was drafted where he was for his ability to create offense on the move. As a rookie, this didn't always go well. The indelible image from his first year was a barreling Knox coming down the lane and either turning it over (his 0.72 AST/TO ratio leaves, umm...a bit to be desired) or throwing up something nasty (and not the good nasty) that had a better change of busting the backboard than going in. This is partly because defenses knew what was coming. Up until the season's last month, Knox only had five games of three or four assists. Over the final 31 days, he had four such games. That counts as progress. During Summer League, we need to see Knox have more of a passing eye on drives, if for no other reason than to make defenses think twice about how they guard him.
Allonzo Trier: Also dishing it...baby. Allonzo's problem wasn't that he didn't know how to pass it, it's that he chose not to. Zo had 11 games lats year when he dished out four or more dimes, including a season-high eight vs OKC. He also had 16 games when he had none, which is borderline inexcusable for someone who plays his style of ball. On the year, only 13.9% of his possessions ended in an assist, which ranked 93rd amongst 114 guards that played at least 41 games and over 20 minutes a night. One look at the names around him on this list is revealing. There's guys like Rodney Hood and Justin Holiday - scorers who don't do much else, which has capped their effectiveness as contributing pieces - and guys like Collin Sexton and Donovan Mitchell, young players who figure to improve with age. Zo's name doesn't get brought up much when NBA people talk about the Knicks' young core, but that could change in a hurry if he comes out this week with an eye on getting easy buckets for his teammates rather than just tough buckets for himself.
RJ Barrett: 3-pt shooting. Not getting complicated here. If Barrett approaches league-average long-range shooting this year, it immediately ups the ceiling on what he's going to be as a player. The DeRozan comps exist because the former Raptor and current Spur has never truly been able to add that part of his game. If Barrett does, the lofty goals the fan base already has for him might have a chance of coming to fruition.
Kadeem Allen: nothing. You can't improve perfection.
Knicks vs Pels. RJ vs Zion. It's almost time. Giddy up.
Thanks for reading, talk to you tomorrow with a special Summer League weekend newsletter!