New York Knicks offseason review

As the NBA offseason plows ahead we’re taking some time to pause and assess the work each team is doing, building for the present and future. Today, we’re looking at the New York Knicks.

The New York Knicks have long been a franchise in search of a savior. Last season, they were gifted with the emergence of the lanky Latvian, Kristaps Porzingis. He made rookie mistakes but appears to be the hero the Knicks have been looking for. How did they start filling in the gaps around him?

Inputs: Derrick Rose (PG, traded from the Chicago Bulls); Joakim Noah (C, signed for four years, $72 million); Brandon Jennings (PG, signed for one year, $5 million); Marshall Plumlee (C, signed for three years, partially guaranteed); Willy Hernangomez (C, signed for four years, $6 million); Mindaugas Kuzminskas (SF, signed for two years, $6 million); Maurice N’dour (PF, signed for two years, $2 million)

Outputs: Robin Lopez (C, traded to the Chicago Bulls); Jose Calderon (PG, traded to the Chicago Bulls), Jerian Grant (PG, traded to the Chicago Bulls); Derrick Williams (PF, signed with the Miami Heat); Kevin Seraphin (C, unsigned); Langston Galloway (PG, signed with the New Orleans Pelicans); Cleanthony Early (SG, unsigned); Lou Amundson (PF, unsigned); Arron Afflalo (SG, signed with the Sacramento Kings)

Retained: Lance Thomas (PF, signed for four years, $28 million), Sasha Vujacic (PG, signed for one year, $1.4 million)

Pending:  None

Trading for Derrick Rose and then signing Joakim Noah were curious moves. Both players are far from their peak seasons and both have ongoing concerns about healthy and longevity. However, if they can stay on the court each has plenty to offer. Rose is not what we was, not even close, but he can still bend the defense with dribble penetration, something the Knicks couldn’t always manage last season. Noah is an excellent frontcourt passer and should be a nice defensive complement to Porzingis. Neither player puts the Knicks over the top, but they could turn out to be a nice buttress for the development of Porzingis.

Brandon Jennings is the new back-up point guard, another player working on rebuilding his reputation after injuries. He can score and he can attack off the dribble as well and should bring some energy to the second-unit offense. The rest of the additions — Hernangomez, Kuzminskas, and N’Dour — may not play a ton this season but all are intriguing in their own way. Hernangomez as a mobile defensive center, Kuzminskas as a shooting wing, and N’Dour as a high-energy defensive dervish.

A lot of the Knicks’ hopes this season rest on the health of Rose and Noah. Porzingis will be better but he and Anthony alone aren’t enough to get this team to the playoffs. If Rose and Noah can stay on the court, they should provide the defensive energy and complementary offense to push this thing forward.

3 Big Questions

To really dig deep on New York’s offseason, I’m leaning on friends with some Knicks expertise. Maxwell Ogden (@MaxwellOgden) is the editor of FanSided’s Daily Knicks. David Vertsberger (@_Verts) is a contributor to FanSided’s Hardwood Paroxysm and Excelle Sports. Jared Dubin (@JADubin5) is a prolific freelancer, a contributing editor to Hardwood Paroxysm, and host of the Locked on Knicks podcast.

Maxwell, David, and Jared were nice enough to help out by answering three big questions about New York’s offseason.

What do Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah have left to give the Knicks next season?

David Vertsberger: I think they still have something left to give. Rose is only 27, and although he struggled last season, there were some moments where he looked very 2011-y. His body hasn’t completely given up on him, and the most important factor here is that, along with Noah, Rose won’t have to be the star on the team. The two aren’t going to be carrying the Knicks, and shouldn’t have to play a ton of minutes either. New York needs Rose to get in the lane and create and Noah to do the dirty work and utilize his passing ability. Rose will have Brandon Jennings backing him up and Carmelo Anthony leading the way in scoring, while Noah’s going to share the frontcourt with Kristaps Porzingis. Even given the injuries, these two should have plenty to supply the Knicks in smaller, more specific roles.

Maxwell Ogden: More than people expect. Derrick Rose doesn’t need to be an MVP-caliber player or a No. 1 scoring option; he just needs to be aggressive when his number is called. Joakim Noah doesn’t need to win Defensive Player of the Year; he just needs to have Kristaps Porzingis’ back. A steady stream of screens will make it easier for Rose to drive to the basket. That’s scary when one considers the fact that he was quietly Top 10 in the NBA in points via drives per game in 2015-16. Noah will be asked to defend, rebound, and facilitate—three areas in which he still performs at a high level. The Knicks are being built around Carmelo Anthony and Porzingis. All Noah and Rose need to do is what they specialize in doing,

Jared Dubin: Noah will give the Knicks his heart and his brain, and that should be enough. Is he worth $18 million a year over four years on the court? No, and it’s probably not close. Is he worth that on and off the court? Well… probably not. But it’s closer. And that’s fine. They don’t necessarily need him to be JOAKIM NOAH, DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR AND MVP CANDIDATE. Joakim Noah, Plus Defender, Porzingis Tutor and Locker Room Leader should suffice.

Rose, I’m more skeptical about. Even during his supposed great second half of the 2015 season, Rose was not as great as he’s been made out to be (17.4 points, 3.1 rebounds and 4.6 assists are All-Star lock numbers now?), and even then he only played well for the first 14 or his 21 post-break games (10.9 points per game on 33.3 percent shooting over the final seven games of the season). He should give an element to the offense that it’s been lacking the last few seasons with his drives to the basket, but I worry he might be tasked with too much responsibility. The Knicks are best off minimizing what they need Rose to do and letting him focus on doing what he can do, but on a team with only one other point guard (who is also coming off a serious injury of his own), that just may not be possible. I understand the desire to throw caution to the wind and just be straight up optimistic, but tell me this: Who was the last player to play as well as Rose did, lose “it” for five injury-plagued years, then come back and reach that level again, in any season? I’ll wait.

Brandon Jennings will be                            this season.

David Vertsberger: Sixth Man of the Year. Seriously. That’s what Phil Jackson wants him to go out and do, and you know what? I think it’s going to happen. Jennings was playing the best basketball of his career prior to the Achilles tear, with a career-high true-shooting percentage of .522 and assist rate of 39.9% in 2015, which wasn’t a long time ago. He should come into this season much healthier, playing for the best team he’s been on in the pros on a one-year deal. He’s still trying to prove himself, and leading a bench unit with few scoring options is the perfect situation for him to do so.

Maxwell Ogden: Brandon Jennings will be more efficient this season. He’s entering the best situation of his entire career. Not only is he playing in a role—sixth man—that actually fits his skill set and mentality, but he’s in the right system. Jeff Hornacek will use both he and Derrick Rose at the same time. He’ll also use Jennings as the primary ball-handler and facilitator. In both situations, Jennings will have a more concrete definition of what he’s supposed to do on offense. Less hero ball + more structure = better efficiency.

Jared Dubin: Entertaining. Alternately wildly productive and wildly frustrating. Coming off the bench to bring an infusion of energy and speed is the best fit for his skill set and in certain games he should thrive in the role. I’m sure there will be a healthy amount of games where fans question why he plays behind Rose, rather than in front of him. But because he is still Brandon Jennings, there will also be games where he chucks a bunch of step back jumpers that make people shake their heads and wonder what on earth he’s doing. Basically, I expect that he’ll still be Brandon Jennings, but off the bench.

Who wins the battle for the hearts of Knicks fans this year, Maurice Ndour or Mindaugas Kuzminskas?

David Vertsberger: Ndour. I haven’t seen enough of Kuzminskas, nor can I spell his name, but I know Knicks fans are going to lose it over Ndour grabbing three offensive rebounds back-to-back-to-back in a 25-point game late in the fourth.

Maxwell Ogden: Maurice Ndour. Mindaugas Kuzminskas may or may not become the better all-around contributor, but Ndour is a Knicks player through and through. He plays with reckless abandon, isn’t afraid of contact, and will put it all on the line for his team. Kuzminskas may prove to be that same type of player, but Ndour has the powerful frame to do so without getting hurt. Kuzminskas may be the flashier player, but there’s nothing Knicks fans love more than a blue collar success story.

Jared Dubin: Much as I will try to make The Mindy Project happen, this battle is already over. Ndour won hearts during 2015 Summer League.

Who is Brandon Jennings?

For a player who has been in the league as long as Brandon Jennings (seven years) a deal of confusion persists about has attitude and approach to the point guard position. The excellent profile of Jennings that David Vertsberger wrote for Issue 3 of the Hardwood Paroxysm Quarterly unraveled many of the misconceptions about his supposedly selfish and entitled attitude.

But on the court Jennings is still perceived as a poor decision-maker and conscienceless gunner — this despite the fact this his career turnover percentage (12.8 percent) is considerably less than Stephen Curry’s (14.9 percent), and that he was one of just 37 players whose assist total was more than half his number of field goal attempts.

To find stylistic comparables for Jennings, we can use the objectivity of Seth Partnow’s Point Guard Personality Test. The test simply measures primary ball-handlers on four stylistic tendencies — shoot vs. pass, on ball vs. off ball, drive vs. probe, and floor spacing. If we combine all four categories and look for the four overall closest point guards by style (using 2014-15 data, the last season available) we end up with a fairly unique group — Damian Lillard, D.J. Augustin, George Hill, and Mike Conley.

The strongest commonality among this group is that they all spend a lot of time on the ball. There is a wider spread in the other three traits but, in general, they are all outside shooters who fall somewhere in the middle of the pack in their balance of shooting and passing, and driving and probing.

The most interesting trait, for me, is the shoot vs. pass tendency. The perception of Jennings is that he is a shoot-first point guard but his percentile rank in this category is just 40 percent, which means he falls more on the “pass” side of the spectrum. His three closest comparables in just this category are: Raymond Felton (40 percent), Ish Smith (39 percent), and Dennis Schroder (41 percent).

Jennings takes some terrible shots and he is no Chris Paul or Rajon Rondo in play-making department. But he’s also not nearly the gunner that his shot selection or 55-point game as a rookie imply. Jennings can put up points in a hurry but he can also be a facilitator and create shots for his teammates. If things go according to plan, the New York Knicks will need a bit of both this year.

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