Respecting Rowan
Tom Piccolo explains why everyone needs to start putting some more respect on RJ Barrett's name.
Good morning! Today we have a special guest column courtesy of Tom Piccolo, and it’s a banger, as usual. But first, Mr. Thibodeau had some things to say at his first media availability of the season…
🗣 News & Notes ✍️
🏀 Tom Thibodeau wasted no time inspiring the fan base to take up pitchforks and torches against him in his first media availability yesterday when he responded to a question regarding the frontrunner for the starting shooting guard spot:
Couple things here…
If this soundbite gave you the urge to reach for the nearest sharp object, I don’t blame you one bit. The better question is where to focus the blame. At Thibs for having the same old stodgy mindset I lamented last week? Naturally. But how much should we loop in Leon Rose as well? Thibodeau has been tasked with winning games as his first priority. Ensuring the development (or increasing the trade value) of the younger players is somewhere lower on the list. That fact was reestablished when the Knicks signed Jalen Brunson and attempted to trade for Donovan Mitchell, and continued to be abundantly clear by the lack of trades to make time for younger players. If Thibs starts Fournier, he may be misguided in thinking the move will lead to more wins, but the spirit behind the decision seems to be in line with his marching orders, not a diversion from the organization’s plan. If it were? There’s one man who’s had the power to dismiss Thibs from his post at any point since things started to go awry last season. The fact that Leon has yet to take that step feels notable.
If it does end up being Fournier, it would not only be an immense sign of faith in Mitchell Robinson, but one last parting shot at Kemba Walker as well. Essentially, Thibs would be making two bets: first, that Mitch can pick up the slack enough on defense to make up for Fournier’s presence, and second, that Brunson will be enough of an upgrade over Walker for the starting five to hold the fort. Maybe he’s not nuts; last season, New York’s defensive rating was 108.0 with Kemba off the court and 114.5 when he played - a difference worth 23 spots in the league rankings.
That decision would also be a sign that Thibs felt his starting unit needed all the offensive boost it can get. Fournier, for all his faults, is still an offensive force opposing teams need to account for. Grimes hasn’t yet shown quite as much on offense, although perhaps that could change over the coming weeks. As Thibodeau said, Fournier is the frontrunner…for now.
Other than the Fournier thing, there wasn’t much terribly noteworthy about Thibodeau’s presser. He spoke about how best to utilize both Obi and Julius without saying very much of anything at all. He also labeled several questions as better asked of Leon Rose, including the organization’s process in vetting assistant coach Rick Brunson, who resigned in Minnesota amidst allegations of improper conduct toward women within the organization.
🏀 While yesterday’s newsletter included Derrick Rose’s quote to Monica McNutt regarding accountability, he had a more extended answer in front of the assembled media later in the day, and it’s worth listening to in full:
In specifically saying “if the last guy can’t tell the star that he missed a coverage, something’s wrong,” Rose seemed to further nudge the arrow of implication towards one man in particular.
But who can say for sure.
🏀 The Knicks announced their coaching staff for the upcoming season, and among them is former Knick Othella Haarrington, who is an assistant coach in charge of player development.
🏀 Looking for the next max contract player who might be on the move? Maybe keep an eye on Phoenix. According to Deandre Ayton, he hasn’t spoken to head coach Monty Williams “at all” since their Game 7 defeat at the hands of the Mavs.
🏀 The Knicks started camp with only 19 players on the roster even though they could have as many as 20. One possible explanation? Per Ian Begley, the Knicks had “been hoping to reduce guard Jean Montero’s buyout with overseas club Grand Canaria,” who impressed New York and other teams during Summer League.
🤔 Ask Macri 📬
Today’s mini-Ask Macri comes in response to yesterday’s predictions column, courtesy of subscriber NB3131:
Jon, if you had your choice, would you take 42-40 and playoffs with Thibs doing Thibs things (rotation wise) OR stumble through the first 25-30 games (say 8-17 or 10-20), but with Thibs getting shown the door and Julius Randle playing at a level high enough where he could be traded, Bryant taking over and finishing at, say, 30-52, and finding out essentially what the roster has?
My initial answer to this was unequivocally the latter, because I get to trade Julius Randle and have a chance at a great pick in a loaded draft.
But then I thought a little bit more and had some doubts, namely:
Would the front office actually trade Randle?
Would the young players predominantly fall short of expectations? Like a lot of Knicks fans, I’m of the opinion that a team without Randle and one of Rose or Fournier would flirt with a .500 record. If they only won 30 games, how many of the kids would have proven themselves as core pieces moving forward? And would RJ be in the “exceeding” or “receding” camp?
Who beat us in the race to the bottom?
This last one is perhaps most pressing. If 30 wins got the Knicks the 4th or 5th spot in the lottery odds for what is supposed to be one of the most stacked drafts in recent memory, I probably wouldn’t care about the answers to the first two questions. But if (as many observers expect) there’s a race to the bottom from opening night that could leave seven or eight teams with win totals in the 20’s, would the eighth or ninth best lottery odds really be worth it?
Even with that caveat, I’d still choose option B. It sounds like option A has the kids largely riding the pine, in which case, is a 42-40 record with a likely early play-in (or at best, playoff) flame out really worth it? Probably not, especially if it results with a pick outside the lottery.
And now, a special guest column from Tom Piccolo on RJ Barrett. As articles critiquing the young man continue to flow, this couldn’t have come at a better time.
Respecting Rowan
by Tom Piccolo
A measly comma. That’s all Woj felt was warranted to separate the news of RJ Barrett’s contract extension from the Donovan Mitchell trade implications.
Our guy couldn’t even get a semicolon, let alone his own sentence. This was a disrespect that went all the way down to the grammatical level. By the time Cleveland finally traded for Mitchell, the RJ signing was practically an afterthought. He had somehow become a supporting character in his own story.
There’s something poetic about RJ having his moment in the sun entirely eclipsed.
In a league where starpower is largely driven by a player’s ability to generate social media-worthy highlights, Barrett’s style is a departure from many of his contemporaries. His game is often unspectacular in the literal sense that it’s frequently without spectacle. Beyond his nakedly apparent desire to win, the task of describing Barrett’s game is a difficult one.
He doesn’t possess Ja Morant’s jaw-dropping quick-twitch detonation. Nor Trae Young’s mesmerizing off-the-dribble virtuosity (or practiced villainy). He doesn’t have Devin Booker’s smooth mid-range precision, nor LaMelo Ball’s clairvoyant vision and almost gratuitous flair. It can feel easier to list what RJ is not rather than what he actually is.
Barrett’s strengths do not pop off the screen. Instead, they move at their own pace, steadily barrelling their way into your subconscious. That’s because RJ’s most-elite skills are not easily digestible basketball actions. We’re not talking about an elusive step-back jumper or a killer crossover.
RJ’s greatest strengths are intangibles. I know that may sound like a cop-out – like the pleading of an RJ apologist. I know the efficiency numbers aren’t there, but just use the eye test with these rose-tinted glasses!
That’s not what this is. RJ Barrett’s greatest skill is that he is utterly relentless. That relentlessness reveals itself most when he attacks the basket - both in terms of his ferocity and frequency. His will to get to the rim is indefatigable, and that’s a skill just as much as a quick first step or passing off the dribble or fancy footwork in the post.
Note what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that RJ’s elite skill is simply driving to the hoop. There are plenty of players who are far more effective in that capacity. Perhaps they have more moves to maneuver around defenders and create space, or they have better touch around the basket to finish efficiently. There are players who are technically better at getting to the rim once they decide to do so. RJ’s uncommon ability is that he decides he will get to the rim damn near every time down the court. It’s not even a decision for him so much as it is a necessity. You know Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? On the court, RJ’s is just one giant isosceles that reads DRIVE.
The more you watch RJ, the more you’ll see a player who doesn’t simply “get downhill.” RJ is a constant downhill force, like the concept of gravity sprouted limbs and learned to dribble. And, that unyielding pressure weighs on defenders. It wears them down. Defending RJ is exhausting like a punishment out of Greek mythology: opponents eternally trying to keep the boulder that is RJ Barrett from getting downhill. Like Sisyphus, they inevitably fail.
After the All-Star Break, only three players recorded more total drives than RJ, per NBA.com’s tracking data: Luka Doncic, Darius Garland, and Pascal Siakam. His 17.5 drives per game during that time was a major leap from his pre-All-Star number of 10.6 drives per contest. Granted, with that increase in volume, his accuracy on shots off those drives fell from bad (43.2% pre-All-Star) to atrocious (39.7% post-All-Star). For the whole season, RJ shot just 55% at the rim, putting him in the 15th percentile among wings per Cleaning The Glass.
There were, however, some mitigating circumstances that didn’t help RJ’s cause. For one, he played nearly all of his minutes with traditional, rim-running bigs. According to Cleaning The Glass, RJ played nearly 80% of his possessions alongside one of Mitchell Robinson, Nerlens Noel or Jericho Sims. If you throw in possessions where Taj Gibson played center, that number jumps up to 95%. Factor in that his two primary power forwards were Julius Randle and Obi Toppin (both of whom shot 30.8% from deep) and you have some of the most cramped frontcourt combos imaginable mucking up the paint for Barrett.
Plays like this were the norm; just look at the Red Sea RJ has to navigate here:
Despite this commonplace lack of spacing, RJ still managed to self-create 56% of his shots at the rim, putting him in the 85th percentile among wings. The BBall Index’s grading system went a step further, ranking RJ as the top small forward in the league in their Rim Shot Creation metric. Throughout the season, he improved his use of the right hand, which helped him more reliably beat opponents off the dribble:
Compounding all of that is the fact that RJ, night after night, was being guarded by the league’s top defensive wing stoppers.
Who else were they going to guard? One way RJ managed to exploit crossmatches was by attacking in transition, another area where his relentlessness manifested. On the season, RJ scored 354 total points in transition, a number bested by only four players in the entire league: Giannis, Booker, LeBron and Morant. Keep in mind, as a team, the Knicks were maddeningly loath to push the pace, ranking 26th in the league in transition frequency. In many lineup configurations, RJ had to be a one-man fastbreak, sometimes forcing the issue against multiple defenders at once:
Could RJ have been more judicious about when he looked to attack? Probably. But even given his inefficiency, his relentlessness was still a plus. Aside from the physical and mental toll it takes on defenders, it also led to fouls. RJ drew fouls on 14.7% of his shot attempts, placing him in the 94th percentile among wings.
Even the misses themselves had potential for value. RJ was among the league leaders in “Kobe Assists,” defined as field goals following a live ball offensive rebound off a missed FG by a player. According to PBP Stats, only Jayson Tatum had more misses that led to made putbacks than RJ Barrett. RJ gets downhill like a landslide, pulling in everything and everyone in his vicinity. Watch how Nikola Vucevic abandons Mitchell Robinson to contest RJ, leaving Mitch open for the OREB and putback:
Let me be clear: I’m not trying to make excuses for RJ’s inefficiency around the basket or give him a participation trophy. His struggles at the rim have been largely unacceptable. But, you can condemn RJ’s inefficiency while also acknowledging that the environment in which he has been playing has been less than ideal. You can change the pieces around a player so that they make sense. It is much more difficult to change a player’s mentality.
If you, like me, are betting on RJ to make a leap, though, it’s because you trust that he will improve his finishing ability, regardless of the circumstances around him. He’s going to get better. We, as Knicks fans, have watched enough of RJ Barrett to know that the relentlessness we see on the court will spill over into honing his craft and improving his game. We have seen the intangibles on a nightly basis and we know that he is going to prove a lot of skeptics wrong. He possesses too many of the qualities that can’t be taught.
The mindset is already there and the skillset is not far behind. Like a lightning storm, we’ve seen the flashes and now we’re waiting for the thunder claps to inevitably follow. Someday soon, RJ will be a special player and universally recognized as such. Period.
Tom Piccolo is a contributing writer and frequent podcast guest for Knicks Film School and the co-host of Talkin’ Knicks. When he’s not sharing his insight on the Knicks, he’s doing PR and communications for Jomboy Media.
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That’s it for today! If you enjoy this newsletter and like the Mets, don’t forget to subscribe to JB’s Metropolitan, or his hockey newsletter, Isles Fix. See y’all soon! #BlackLivesMatter
I find it very disappointing to be a Knick fan today. Their coach from the 1990’s still insists that he will start an older player with serious deficiencies over their own seemingly Crown Prince (if all of the Mitchell rumors are to be believed); it seems Randle is ensconced as the starting power forward and will get his 33-35 minutes a night and DRose is back and in good shape, so we know he will play 20-23 minutes a game.
This all adds up to Rose’s short term vision of winning enough games to at least squeeze into the play-in at a cost of not playing Obi, Cam, Grimes and IQ as much as we all had hoped. Also part of the plan seems to resist developing their own young players as either their own future or as trade assets;
Also, the Rose regime seems intent on both hoarding draft picks but not using draft picks (in three seasons at the helm during the draft, they have traded down twice and traded out once).
In other words, rinse, wash repeat.
Tom’s analysis makes me both higher on RJ and higher / more optimistic about the team overall - and even more down on Thibs as an offensive coach. I can imagine a lineup that really maximizes RJ’s greatest skills: IQ or DRose at the 1, Evan at the 3, post-all-star-break Obi at the 5, and Hart at the 5. This feels like it would spread the floor for RJ. Watching Tom’s film, it feels as though it’s a miracle RJ got anything done at the rim at all. For not the first time, one wishes Thibs played a style that didn’t waste so much of his team’s offensive talent, I think.