The One and Only

A personal favorite starts off our top 10.

Good morning! You know it’s the dog days when Josh Hart is getting antsy on social media. To help pass the time, today we continue my personal countdown of the top 25 Knicks of the last 25 seasons (Ray has the day off, but he’ll be back next Friday). It’s a player near and dear to my heart, so much so that there was a table at my wedding named after him (or more accurately, named “The Pipe” after the most famous of his off-court exploits). Let’s get to it…

25 for 25: No. 10 - J.R. Smith

When people talk about players you needed to see to believe, they’re usually talking about the all-time greats. Dave DeBusschere comes to mind among Knicks. Willis Reed too. Among non-Knicks, I always think of Wilt. I’m sure there’s a dozen other obvious names I’m forgetting. Maybe a good topic for a podcast one day.

In any case, the subject of today’s newsletter is decidedly not an all-time great.

Despite being a 6th Man of the Year award winner and two-time NBA champ (75 postseason minutes for the 2020 Lakers!), J.R. Smith topped out as a high level role player, if that. Even during the 2012-13 campaign - inarguably his best as a pro aside from his year in the Chinese Basketball Association, where he averaged 34.4 points - Smith ranked 45th in the NBA in Win Shares, 48th in VORP and 65th in Box Plus Minus. He was never in the running for an All-Star nod.

And yet, if there’s one player over the last 25 years of Knicks basketball who I’d insist on someone having watched before offering their opinion about his impact, it is easily J.R. Smith.

Smith is like a David Lynch movie (may he rest in peace). I could sit here and describe the plot, the characters, the setting - literally go frame for frame throughout the entire run time - and it wouldn’t begin to approximate the experience.