NBA Draft 2017: 5 best fits for Lonzo Ball
By Chris Stone
3. New York Knicks
Unlike the Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets, the New York Knicks do have a first round pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. The Knicks will pick No. 8 on draft night, so unless Ball takes a precipitous fall, they won’t be able to snag him without a trade, but the UCLA freshman would fit in well in the Big Apple.
Like the Warriors, the Knicks are not heavily reliant on pick-and-roll to generate scoring chances, which as we’ve already mentioned helps to minimize one of Ball’s biggest question marks against NBA competition. Some of that is a reliance on principles of the Triangle offense that has been heavily advocated by team president Phil Jackson.
The principles of the Triangle emphasize off ball movement and intelligent basketball. Ball is elite at both of those things. New York probably won’t ever adopt a strict interpretation of the Triangle that will please Jackson, but the coaching staff could use its tenets to craft an offense around the smarts and skill of Ball if they found a way to get him into a Knicks uniform.
Prior point guards who have succeeded in the offense have not been elite offensive creators in their own right, but intelligent players who used shooting and cutting to generate offensive chances. Those are the best parts of Ball’s game.