NBA Season Preview 2019-20: Every team’s biggest question

New York Knicks: How much will Kevin Knox improve?

The New York Knicks entered the offseason with aspirations of teaming up Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Zion Williamson in Madison Square Garden. Instead, they ended up with R.J. Barrett, Julius Randle and Bobby Portis. Not exactly how James Dolan drew it up.

With the Knicks having struck out on their free agent aspirations, they suddenly find themselves pushed into an unexpected youth movement. There is going to be tremendous pressure on young players like Kevin Knox, R.J. Barrett and Mitchell Robinson to satisfy fans who expected this summer to serve as the origin story of a championship contender. Playing in New York is never free of expectations, after all. Barrett seems to have a high upside as a scoring combo guard, and Robinson impressed in his rookie season as a high-energy rim-running center. That leaves one substantial question mark: Knox.

The problem with Knox is that he simply wasn’t a good NBA player by any measure last season. Despite his reputation as a scorer with a high potential ceiling, he simply has not scored efficiently in college or in the pros. At Kentucky, he was adequate — 51 percent effective field goal percentage — but inconsistent, prone to disappearing across multiple game stretches. In his rookie season, he was downright abominable, shooting a putrid 37 percent from the field. He’s not an impact defender either — he ranked dead last among NBA forwards in D-PIPM at -2.3. He was actively detrimental to the team on both sides of the ball.

This season is going to be something of a lost one for the Knicks, but as with many of the Eastern Conference’s bottom-feeders, there’s room for optimism if their young talent can make strides. Nobody on this roster has more room to grow than Kevin Knox.