The Preseason Begins

The Knicks play basketball tonight. We look forward to that, plus Part I of a deep dive on New York's offensive hierarchy.

Good morning! THE PRESEASON IS HERE!!!!!!! Rejoice appropriately.

Let’s get to the newsletter.

Game Night

Who: Knicks vs Celtics

When: Monday, 7:30 pm

Where: MSG

What to watch for: The first rule of preseason is that preseason doesn’t mean anything, so there’s very little I could write in this space that shouldn’t be accompanied by a directive to see Rule No. 1

That being said…

We know there is a minutes crunch on this team. If every non-center plays the same number of minutes they averaged last season, the seven assumed rotation Knicks would exceed the allotted 192-minute limit by 27.5 minutes - essentially the minute allotment of a 5th starter or 6th man. Good luck to Thibs figuring that out.

We’ll naturally look for clues about his minutes distribution in the preseason, but I doubt we learn much. Last preseason, no Knick averaged over 28 minutes, with Julius and Jalen combining for under 50 minutes a game. This will not be an accurate depiction of what we’ll see once the games count.

But I do think we’ll be able to glean some valuable info, specifically about lineup combinations Thibs is interested in exploring. He’s already gone on the record saying he’d like to see how Donte DiVincenzo runs with the starters, so that’s something. He’s also talked up Jericho Sims in camp, so we’ll see how much that translates.

Last but certainly not least, I wonder if we get a glimpse of small ball at some point over these four games. That would drive a subset of fans absolutely bonkers with Obi Toppin now off the team, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

Point Producers

In the 1972-73 season, Walt Frazier led the Knicks in scoring with an average of 21.1 points per game en route to the team’s last NBA championship.

He was followed by Dave DeBusschere at 16.3 points, who was followed by Bill Bradley at 16.1 points.

The following year, the three future Hall-of-Famers were once again the three leading Knicks scorers by average, in the exact same order. Nice, neat and tidy.

Simpler times, they were…

In the half century since 1973, only once have the same three players led New York in scoring average in the same order in consecutive seasons. It happened in ‘01-02 and ‘02-03, when Allan Houston finished first, Latrell Sprewell finished second and Kurt Thomas finished third.

Almost as surprising: in just two other pairs of seasons in the last 50 years have the same three players topped the Knicks scoring in consecutive seasons regardless of the order¹. Both times, the order flipped. In 1999, we had Ewing 1st, Sprewell 2nd and Houston 3rd followed by Houston 1st, Sprewell 2nd and Ewing 3rd in ‘99-00. Six years later, it Marbury-Crawford-Curry in ‘05-06 followed by Curry-Crawford-Marbury in ‘06-07.

That’s it. Only four times in five decades has there been year-to-year scoring consistency with this franchise. It speaks to a few realities. For one, as I detailed recently, few teams have had as much consistent roster turnover as the Knicks. More specifically, New York has rarely had a star duo they were pleased with, let alone a sufficient top three. As a result, they’ve constantly swapped out players in an effort to find that ever-elusive perfect blend.

Which brings us to the present day.

Last season, Julius Randle led the Knicks in scoring with an average of 25.1 points per game, the first time any Knick topped 25 a night since Melo did so nine years earlier.

He was followed by Jalen Brunson, who at 24.0 points posted the third highest scoring average in franchise history for a player who didn’t lead the team in scoring².

In third place was RJ Barrett, who was 29 points away from becoming the first Knick ever to average 20 a night as the team’s third leading scorer. Even though he missed out on that designation, RJ tied Jamal Crawford for highest scoring average by a third leading scorer in Knicks history - a feat made slightly more impressive by the fact that Crawford only played 11 games in New York before getting dealt to LA when he put up 19.6 points per game in 2008.

After Barrett, the next leading scorer on the team was Immanuel Quickley all the way down at 14.9 points, and even that number is a bit deceiving. When he was a sub, Quick only averaged 12.3 points per contest, and of the 21 games he started, 20 were ones that either Brunson or Barrett missed³.

In other words, when everyone is healthy, New York had as clear a line of demarcation between their top three scorers and everyone else as any team in the league. Since there was no significant changes to the roster over the summer, logic dictates that the top three will remain the same. History, on the other hand, says otherwise.

If there is a change to the order, the easiest guess is that Brunson and Randle will flip. They were neck and neck for much of last season, and after Jalen’s explosive playoffs when he finished as the league’s eighth leading postseason scorer, it’s not hard to envision a world where he takes yet another step up in the NBA’s hierarchy. As it stands, Brunson has increased his points per 36 minutes every year of his career, going from 15.3 points per 36 minutes as a rookie all the way to 24.7 per 36 last year. It should surprise no one if the trend continues.

We also shouldn’t be shocked if Randle takes a step back. In something of an odd trend, Julius has reached new career highs in scoring in the last three odd numbered years (2019, 2021 and 2023). In the last two even numbered years, however, he’s taken a step back, with a scoring dip of two points per game in 2020 and then four points in 2022.

But predicting a flip between Jalen and Julius is not only boring, but if history is any indication, unlikely to be the only change in the top three. More likely, there will be something more drastic.

Might that mean that either Randle or Brunson will no longer be one of the team’s leading scorers? There’s no prospective trade candidate on the horizon that would nudge either prominent Knick point getter from their perch. At the very least, both will almost certainly finish among the top three.

Is that for the best though? Following a newsletter from early September about the benefits of stars who move the ball, reader Hanke made an interesting observation:

Of the Knicks' starters, only two are in the top 50 percent at their position on Cleaning the Glass in assist to usage rate: Quentin Grimes (63rd percentile) and Julius Randle (59th percentile). Brunson, for all of his good attributes, is in the 22nd percentile for his position, while RJ is in the 24th percentile on the wing. At the same time, Brunson was among the league leaders in avoiding turnovers (98th percentile). So, would the Knicks be better off if Brunson passed more?

It’s an interesting idea.

Among the league’s highest usage point or combo guards, Brunson has one of the best assist to turnover ratios at 2.96. Only the league’s two leading dime-droppers, Harden and Haliburton, as well as Fred VanVleet, are better. Jalen is also one of the best in the game at collapsing the defense, albeit in a fashion that more closely resembles Kevin McHale than any other current guard. In theory, there’s a path to turn a few more of those tough mid-rangers into kick-out threes.

But looking at the rest of New York’s starting lineup, that path may often lead to a dead end. Excluding Mitch, the other three starters attempted between 4.6 and 4.9 catch & shoot threes last season. Grimes hit a solid 40.0 percent of those looks, but Julius nailed just 34.5 percent, while RJ struggled to a 32.5 percent conversion rate. Given Brunson’s 54.7 effective field goal percentage, or even just his 51.9 percent hit rate on twos, the math says that he’s better off putting it up himself than passing to either Randle or Barrett behind the arc.

Could this be an argument for playing Brunson more with the subs? Lineups without Brunson or Randle struggled to score last season, while Brunson + bench lineups generally had a lot of success⁴. If the Knicks mix and match it so that Brunson is on the court with at least two of DiVincenzo, Quickley or Grimes, those drive and kick opportunities could be a lot more fruitful.

On the flip side, the old theory of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” might apply here. One of Brunson or Randle led the Knicks in scoring 70 percent of the time last season - a considerable figure considering they missed 19 games combined. The team was 36-21 in those games, or the equivalent of a 52-win pace. It’s specious logic to look at this stat alone and deduce that Julius or Jalen scoring is New York’s best path to success, but we also know firsthand how formidable each player can be when they have it going.

And then there’s 6th Man of the Year runner up Immanuel Quickley, who led the team in scoring nine times, six of which came with Brunson sidelined. It’s been said that part of Quick’s value is the safety blanket he provides Tom Thibodeau, serving as an apt replacement when Brunson is out. That held true last season, as the Knicks were 4-2 in Brunson-less games where Quick led New York in scoring, and 7-2 overall in games where IQ topped the box score.

When the Knicks wound up with a different leading scorer than Randle, Brunson and Quickley though, the results were far less inspiring. The team went 4-12 in those 16 games, with the majority of the losses falling on RJ Barrett’s ledger.

Should we take anything from these totals, which can be pretty easily written off as small sample size theater?

Given how good RJ was in the playoffs - and by contrast, how uncertain IQ looked - it seems premature to suggest that those two will (or should) switch places in New York’s scoring hierarchy.

Is that wise? Should New York being giving a greater slice of the offensive pie to someone who all the advanced stats absolutely love? Or might there be another candidate to sneak into that top three?

CHECK BACK WEDNESDAY FOR PART II OF “POINT PRODUCERS”

🏀

#BlackLivesMatter

1. On second thought, if you’ve been a fan for the last 50 years, that’s probably not surprising at all.

2. The two that were higher: Amar'e Stoudemire averaged 25.3 points in 2010-11, which trailed Carmelo’s 26.3 (although that deserves an asterisk because Anthony was only here for the final 27 games), and then Willie Naulls posted 25.0 points in 1961-62, trailing Richie Guerin’s 29.5.

3. The 21st was a game that Grimes was absent for.

4. Brunson played 705 possessions without Randle last season according to Cleaning the Glass. New York outscored opponents by 13.2 points per 100 possessions during that time, largely thanks to a scorched earth 125.2 offensive rating.