Top 3 Early Season Concerns

Plus, a final reminder about tonight's watch party.

Good morning! FINAL REMINDER 👇 👇 👇

We’re giving away those Knicks / Bulls tix at halftime, so if you’re thinking of stopping by, make sure you’re there before the end of the second quarter. Party kicks off at 6:30, tip off is at 7:30. Be at T-Square or be square. RSVP here, or just come on down.

Top 3 Early Season Concerns

If there was one word I would use to describe the state of the fan base 16 days into the season, it would be “consternation.”

Aside from being just an absolute kick-ass word, the shoe is a near perfect fit:

Feelings of anxiety or dismay, typically at something unexpected

Anxiety? Check.

Dismay? Check.

Unexpected? That’s where we might run into an issue.

In this very space about a month ago, I wrote the following when I predicted there would be an early season crisis point:

“For one, the starting five has never played a minute of NBA basketball together. Hopefully the Villanova mind meld will make Mikal’s integration fairly seamless, but KAT has never played with any of these guys and will be manning a position he’s played only part time over the last two seasons.

On top of that, Jalen Brunson had to spend most of his summer rehabbing, and they will likely be employing some unfamiliar defensive schemes.

Oh, and they begin the season with a hellacious 10-game stretch.

Add it all up, and I could see a city full of very nervous Knick fans if they go something like 4-6 out of the gate.”

The only problem is that the first seven of those opening 10 games haven’t felt hellacious at all. The Celtics were red hot on opening night, the Cavs are still undefeated, and Houston has the 5th best net rating in basketball, but with the exception of Boston and maybe Cleveland, it isn’t so much that the Knicks have been beaten as the Knicks have beat themselves.

Hence, the consternation.

The only question now is which issues require adjustments (whether they be schematic or personnel based) and which ones simply need time.

With that in mind, let’s go through my top three early season issues and see what we can figure out. First, some honorable mentions:

• Josh Hart, turnover machine: Hart is averaging 2.3 turnovers per 36 minutes, up from 1.6 since he arrived. Strikes me as a guy trying to do a little too much.

• Mikal can’t convert from above the break: Bridges is shooting 59 percent from the corners, third highest in the league among players who have put up significant volume. On the flip side, he’s 4-for-24 on above the break triples. Teams are still guarding him tight, so that’s good. Hopefully it’s only a matter of time before his form exhibits more consistency from the longest distances.

• Deuce hasn’t hit a shot from floater range: He’s 0-for-12 from between four and 14 feet. He’s steadily improved from this range in each of the previous two years, so I’m happy to chalk this up to small sample size for now.

• KAT is shooting 49 percent at the rim: Hold that thought…

• Mikal is taking only 14 percent of his shots in the restricted area: Grouping these two together because they’re symptoms of the same disease: for all the benefits that have resulted in New York’s increased spacing, easy shots at the rim somehow aren’t among them. Correcting this probably requires more ball movement early in possessions and more player movement late in the clock.

  (And for all you bench-Josh-Hart heads out there, the Knicks are taking 13.2 percent more shots at the rim when Hart plays, which is in the 99th percentile league-wide. When Deuce is in the game, they take 8.7 percent fewer shots in the restricted area, which is in the second percentile across the NBA).

Last thing before the top three: it goes without saying that the lack of depth is a problem and that the starters can’t keep up these minutes totals for 82 games. Unfortunately, they can’t rush health (or trades, for that matter). On to the list…