The Whiteboard: The New York Knicks might be the NBA’s worst team next year

The New York Knicks might take being bad in the NBA to a whole new level this season.

The New York Knicks have been bad for a while now, but the Knickerbockers might take their suckiness to the next level during the 2018-19 NBA season with Kristaps Porzingis slated to miss a lot of the year.

Sure, New York now has David Fizdale in town, which is a positive compared to some recent NYK head coaches. On the other hand, Mr. “Take that for data” is interested in Kristaps at small forward lineups, so maybe the excitement there should be tempered.

On the player side of things, the Knicks added Mario Hezonja, who was so good the Orlando Magic decided to decline the fourth-year option on his rookie deal, and Kevin Knox, who is admittedly fun but also just 18 years old.

Those two don’t come close to making up for the loss of Porzingis, who could be back by February but likely won’t really look like himself until the beginning of the 2019-20 season. That’s a really bad sign for New York fans, as the team was just miserable without Kristaps on the floor.

The Knicks won 29 games in the 2017-18 regular season. A whopping 22 of those wins came in Porzingis’ 48 games played. New York went 22-26 with Kristaps, and 7-27 without him. That’s a solid 16-17 win pace over an 82-game season. (Authors note: it’s not really all that solid.)

Unless David Fizdale is actually the next great NBA coach and all of the Knicks’ young guys take a real big step forward, New York is going to be very, very bad while Kristaps Porzingis recovers from his torn ACL. That’s actually fine for the Knicks, who could use another top pick and under no circumstances should rush their franchise player back from injury.

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