2015-16 Season Preview: New York Knicks

NEW YORK KNICKS

The Knicks are a storied franchise the same way the Mayan civilization is imposing: there’s evidence of greatness, but it was a long time ago and all that’s left is ruins. The greatest thing they’ve been able to accomplish lately is land Carmelo Anthony, but last season he played sparingly due to injuries and the team collapsed. Luckily, New York City is so large they’re going to get enough people to pay for tickets no matter how good they are, but their badness isn’t even a joke anymore. It’s just who they are.

2015 in review:

Set some creepy music to highlights of the Knicks 2015 season and you’d have a horror movie trailer. They were atrocious in multiple categories and for multiple reasons. Anthony had a partial season. Maybe this was all a part of an elaborate Jon Bois art project. I’m not sure what happened. But they had major issues scoring and defending, leading to the worst record in the league. As a reward, they caught a fourth overall draft pick and chose a player who fleetingly reminds people of Andrea Bargnani.

Rotation players in: Robin Lopez, Arron Afflalo, Derrick Williams, Kristaps Porzingis, Kyle O’Quinn.

Rotation players out: Andrea Bargnani, Quincy Acy, Cole Aldrich, Tim Hardaway Jr., Shane Larkin, Iman Shumpert.

The Knicks had a lot of moving parts last season, so it’s tough to see through all the rubble, but on the whole they’ve brought in more talent than they lost over the summer. Robin Lopez and Kyle O’Quinn provide New York with competent frontcourt pieces, and there’s a chance Kristaps Porzingis can help as well. But Derrick Williams is probably a lost cause at this point while Arron Afflalo was exposed on a Portland team that fell apart without Wesley Matthews. However, Afflalo found a team that best suits his needs, as he’s a wonderful baseline midrange specialist and the team could use all the help it could get in creating shots outside of Carmelo.

2016 Projected

Whatever improvement the team makes, I doubt it will be due to the use of the triangle. Players drive how good a team is, not a scheme, and a triangle isn’t some revolutionary method, like Phoenix Suns-era seven-seconds-or-less play, that will maximize the talent they have. It works better with a team with lots of intelligent passers, and New York has some of the densest black holes you’ll find in the NBA with guys like Carmelo, Lopez, Kevin Seraphin, and O’Quinn. Phil Jackson won with passers like Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Tony Kukoc, and Luc Longley or Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom, and Paul Gasol – I don’t think this is ideal.

The success of the Knicks will be controlled by Anthony, who’s a large scoring forward in his early 30’s coming off a season with knee problems. It’s unclear how much longer he’ll remain a positive force. Although he has a poor reputation as a chucking ballhog and an advanced stat negative, at his best he’s a clearly effective player who can shoulder a large portion of a team’s offense with scoring that’s at least league average in terms of efficiency. He creates offense with little help using a deadly mid-post attack where he can pull-up for a shot or drive to the rim. Unfortunately, his rate of shots at the rim and free throws taken have been declining as he ages, and while an improved three-point shot held up his overall percentages for a while it may not hold. He’s an underrated rebounder, but overall he’s a net negative defender and I can’t imagine there are many people out there who would argue against that point. Add it all up, and he’s definitely New York’s best player and an asset when healthy, but he can’t perform a superhuman act to push them to the playoffs alone.

Perimeter defense could be an issue for New York. Jose Calderon is a turnstile and just doesn’t have the physical abilities to track NBA athletes. Arron Afflalo recently had the reputation as a good defender, but after Portland’s post-Matthews tailspin, many die-hard NBA fans and the media began to understand his limitations. Langston Galloway was a bright spot last season, and the combo guard competed well, drawing offensive fouls and contesting shots well with his large wingspan. Outside of him, I wouldn’t expect much, as you can’t dependably rely on rookies (i.e. Jerian Grant) or their other deep bench players for defense.

Functionally, assuming reduced minutes for Calderon and nice progress from Galloway and others, a combination of Lopez and O’Quinn might be enough to field a defense closer to the league average than the bottom if things break well. Lopez doesn’t move fast laterally, but he’s a smart defender who’s best utilized by dropping back to the rim rather than chasing aggressively on the perimeter. O’Quinn has had healthy rates of blocks, steals, and rebounds for his career, and with his 7’ 5” wingspan he’s a deterrent around the rim and underrated overall.

On offense, the team will revolve around Carmelo, triangle or not, and they could be one of the heaviest midrange teams in recent memory. The aforementioned O’Quinn takes a lot of long two-pointers, and he’ll probably abandon his three-point shooting this season. Carmelo is becoming increasingly reliant on midrange shots, while Afflalo will probably be their second leading scorer and that’s his game too. The Knicks were a hair behind the Lakers last season in midrange jumpers per game, via stats.NBA.com – they could take that mantle this season.

To create more efficient opportunities, the Knicks need players who can break down defenses, cause desperate rotations, and swing the ball around to the right player. They don’t really have anyone like that, as Calderon is fairly timid and Galloway had a tiny assist rate for a point. The triangle is supposedly a solution here where the thinking is passing is faster than a player can move and with the right passes you can generate great shots, but, again, they don’t have good passers or even great cutters. A couple pieces make sense, like if Derrick Williams reinvents himself with off-ball movement because he’s great at finishing at the rim, but a magician is needed to push this team to greater heights, not a triangle. The offense could be clunky, even with the injection of Sasha “the Machine” Vujacic.

The wild card here is, of course, is Kristaps Porzingis. He’s a rare skilled big man with a shooting touch and nimble feet you don’t normally see with a seven-footer. You can imagine the Dirk comparisons, and we even have the gift of height inflation you see from international prospects – apparently he’s 7’ 3”, but I have my doubts. At power forward, a guy that large with shooting and scoring skills is tantalizing. Overall, draft models don’t see him as a likely bust but also don’t project him as a top-3 talent with the exception of Kevin Pelton’s numbers. There’s a (slim) chance the Knicks are about to enter the Porzingis era, but his similarities to Bargnani are frightening, especially since Bargnani’s pre-NBA stats were slightly better.

Quick statistic/graph

Robin Lopez is a huge, lumbering player, but he doesn’t pick up a huge amount of defensive rebounds. He’s good on the other end, so has been slacking on defense, hurting his team? He’s actually one of the best in the league at boxing out opponents so his teammates can grab the board. Using numbers from Jeremias Engleman’s now defunct website for 2015[9. Three seasons were included, but 2015 was weighed more.], we can estimate a player’s effect on his team’s rebounding and compare it to the corresponding player’s individual rebounding numbers to pick up on good team rebounders and rebound stealers. You also have to adjust for how many rebounds a player grabs because of the diminishing returns inherent with the stat. Ranking players by the difference of their estimated and actual teammate rebound effect, Robin Lopez is second behind Aron Baynes. Baynes is known for his toughness and rebounding, so he’s not an entirely aberrant leader. Lopez’s overall effect is actually the same as a typical player with a rebound rate of 18.7% — that’s much better than his surface level stats indicate.

Table: Team rebounders, 2015 (1000 MP min.)

Summary

The Knicks will likely be a lot better for a few reasons. It’s amazing how bad the Knicks were when Carmelo was off the court – b-ref has the Knicks scoring 107.9 points per 100 possession when he was on the court versus a ridiculously low 95.4 points when off – which is strangely optimistic because he sat the last third of the season. With more minutes from Anthony and a few useful pieces incoming, the Knicks are clawing their way out of rock bottom. But they’re still far from being any good.

PBP-Metric[6. This is the initial version of my own metric, which uses a full range of stats from 15 seasons collected from play-by-play logs and tested extensively to avoid overfitting.]: 26.7

PT-PM: 25

Nick’s[7. For a short description, the predictions use regression models and neural networks to apply various stats like BPM, RAPM, and Win Shares to 10,000 simulations of the season game-by-game to select the “best” result.]: 31

Nate Walker’s[1. Methodology to come on Friday!]: 28