Friday Mailbag

We end the week with a 3-pack of questions.

Good morning! New York is in Denver tonight, and Josh Hart is questionable. Aaron Gordon may make his return for the Nuggets.

Friday Mailbag

In Tuesday’s newsletter, I highlighted several stats pertaining to OG Anunoby, including that the Knicks were 23-4 this season when OG had at least a 20 usage rate and had but one loss in Anunoby’s entire Knick tenure when he had a personal defensive rating of 104 or less.

So naturally, in Wednesday’s bout with OKC, OG had a 22.8 usage rate and a personal 97 defensive rating.

So much for statistical indicators.

The message, as always: wait until after games against the best team in basketball to write such articles.

(Either that, or be confident the NBA isn’t going to rig them.)

To end the week, I thought I’d respond to some comments from the last few newsletters, starting with this one from Matt:

Is it as simple as the trade deadline is over and KAT is no longer in his head? He’s playing really well on both ends. His teammates/coaches have to do a better job getting him the ball but he needs to fight for position. Aaron Wiggins can’t front you and that’s it, you give up.

I think a lot of us are in agreement with the general sentiment here, which is that Towns has been really, really good since the break, but there’s still a little meat on the bone.

Let’s start with the good: in the eight games since All-Star weekend, KAT is shooting 61.2 percent from the field and 52.2 percent from deep compared to 46.6 percent from the field and 35.1 percent from deep before the break. His efficiency differential has continued to rise, and is now tied with Deuce as best on the team among year-long rotation players at +8.1 points per 100 possessions.

The downside: his threes have gone down even more, from 4.5 attempts per game before the break - already his lowest since the ‘17-18 season - to 2.9 since. That drop has accounted for almost all of his overall decrease in shots since All-Star, from 14.0 to 12.3.

And as Matt alludes to, we still have possessions like this:

Now this isn’t all on KAT.