Must Win in Motown?
The Knicks could use some good vibes. Badly.
Hello friends.
It’s good to have friends at times like this, no? When all the news about your favorite team is seemingly terrible, and you’ve just done your first Tankathon simulation and goddammit we came in fourth! Fourth!?! Can we not catch one freaking break, for crying out loud?!?!?
//deep breaths//
Yeah. It’s like that.
Thankfully, this is the NBA, and there is no such thing as a must win game before April. If the Knicks go into Motown, look solid, lose a close game in the fourth, and then rip off four or five of six, including one against He Who Must Not Be Named, we’ll all be getting the ticker tape ready. Sports are funny like that.
But we are at the first crisis point of the season. Regardless of your stance on the issue, this RJ/minutes thing has legs (and if you haven’t already, check out Alex Collins’ excellent deep dive into the relationship between NBA player minutes and injuries in recent years). It’s going to be an issue for as long as a) he keeps playing so much and b) the team keeps losing.
There’s also already been some friction between the twin peaks of winning and development that are supposed to be the tent-poles of this season. Before David Fizdale (who still hasn’t learned that every word he says will be picked apart ad nauseam) even finished saying that he wanted to move Mitchell Robinson to the bench to get Julius Randle going, the torches were already lit and the pitchforks raised.
(Thankfully this seems like only a one-game experiment. Mitch will be back in the starting lineup tonight against Detroit.)
In reality, Robinson probably had his best game, looking sprier than he has been on defense and playing five more minutes than he had in any night this season, in part because he avoided the early foul woes that have been sending him to the bench early.
Toss in Kevin Knox’s early season emergence (among 125 players who have seen at least 20 minutes a night and sport a 20 usage rate or higher, Knox’s eFG% of 51.7 ranks 56th. Last season, using the same parameters, he was 143rd out of 145 guys) and RJ Barrett’s early season ROY campaign (rather than quote some stat, just check out Tom Piccolo’s excellent Barrett breakdown), and the whole “take care of the guys that matter” box seems to be checked.
If only the “winning” part of the equation would take hold, a lot of the noise we’ve heard the last several days would easily die down. It’s why tonight’s game, and the six that follow it before the schedule gets positively brutal, are so important. It’s not because this team is going anywhere this year; it’s because life is just a lot simpler and more pleasant when the buzzards aren’t circling.
It reminds me of something Woj said on his podcast way back in early July. Referencing nobody’s favorite Latvian, he said that playing for the Knicks “wears on you.” It was in the context of a conversation about Dolan, but I’m reminded of it now, simply because it’s true. Things are different here.
Here’s a simple example: RJ Barrett is fourth in the league in minutes at 37.1 a game, sandwiched by Dame Lillard (3rd, 37.7) and CJ McCollum (5th, 36.6). Portland is struggling at 3-4, is adjusting to a lot of new faces, and has a coach that would feel awfully uneasy if his team missed the playoffs this season. Lillard and McCollum are 10 years older than Barrett, have a higher usage rate, and don’t have nearly the physical makeup of the wunderkind.
Yet no one is asking Terry Stotts about the minutes his two stars are playing because it’s Portland, and (apologies to the great northwest, which I hear is a lovely place) nobody gives a shit about Portland.
Here in New York, Mike Vorkunov has been developing this story, because he’s an excellent reporter and is doing his job in a market where if you’re not standing out, you’ll be out of a job. I have no idea whether RJ’s minutes are a problem or not, but I do know that it’s yet another thing that this kid, this coach, this locker room and this franchise has to deal with that 29 other franchises don’t.
Right now, he’s a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed bundle of energy. I mean, c’mon…you can’t write this stuff:
The goal has to be to keep him this way. Losing + general negatively from the outside world has a tendency to beat this kind of enthusiasm out of you.
Would anyone care nearly as much if the Knicks would have emerged victorious in Boston and Brooklyn, two games that were tied in the final minute, and were sitting with a record of 3-4? I doubt it. But, as they say, this is the business we’ve chosen.
This is all to say that winning cures a lot of ills, and quiets a lot of potential conversations, whether they be about the wisdom of getting certain players going, moving others to the bench, who’s playing what minutes, and so on and so forth. It’s the reason why, amidst all the barbs and arrows slung at the organization this summer, I supported their moves, because in this town at least, a few extra wins go a long way towards quieting the masses.
Although it does make me wonder: if New York had gone a different route, taken on all the salary dump trades the critics implored them to seek out (all two of them – I love how people continuously gloss over this minor fact) and not proclaimed through their actions that “we might not be great, but we’ll damn sure be better,” would the conversation be more forgiving right now?
I tend to think no, just because losing tends to evaporate context real quick. It also should be noted that New York is on track to once again end up with a great pick in a draft loaded with exactly the type of lead guards they need…and no one really cares. If they hadn’t gone on a spending spree, would the narrative be more inclusive of the fact that more help is on the way through the draft? Maybe, but I doubt it.
Most importantly, we should probably take stock of the fact that this summer may have actually had the intended effect of taking the heat off the kids while simultaneously lighting a fire under their ass.
Is Kevin Knox performing this well if it weren’t for Julius Randle attracting double and triple teams? Knox is shooting more and getting better looks from Randle than via any other player. Elfrid Payton (who will unfortunately miss at least two more games) has assisted to RJ Barrett more than any other Knick, and RJ is shooting 50% on field goal attempts off Payton passes. The Knicks have a 49 eFG% when Wayne Ellington is on the court vs 46.9 when he’s off. New York is defending at a top ten rate when Taj Gibson is on the floor.
These are all helpful things to the present and the future. Unfortunately, that balance is still being achieved, and the positive aspects in either column haven’t been as prevalent as they need to be.
Perhaps the next seven games will help tip the scales in the right direction, and by the time the team gets to the gauntlet part of it’s schedule in two weeks, they still won’t be flying, but may at least be falling with style.
After Sunday’s dud, that process needs to start tonight.