New Year’s Resolutions For The New York Knicks
New Year’s resolutions almost never work out. But if the New York Knicks want to make a playoff push, they must stick to these resolutions in 2016.
To say the least, 2015 was an eventful year.
Clocks became a huge discussion point for like, the first time since their invention, a crazy man ran for President (Am I talking about Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump? You’ll never know), and a new Star Wars movie came out and subsequently took over the entire world.
Of course, that trend continues into the NBA, as it was a huge year for the Association.
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Stephen Curry rose all the way from “good point guard that looks like a child” all the way up to “MVP point guard that looks like a child,” LeBron James showed us that if you do the right thing and go home you will be rewarded by having your heart broken in the NBA Finals, and the San Antonio Spurs showed us that if there is a God, he looks suspiciously like Gregg Popovich.
With that all being said, the New York Knicks had a particularly interesting 2015. After winning only 10 games after the New Year last season, the Knicks have closed out the year strong, kicking off the new season at a 15-18 record and surprising many.
Of course, the team also drafted future centerpiece Kristaps Porzingis and solid guard Jerian Grant, as well as adding various pieces to aide in the rebuilding process, including Robin Lopez and Arron Afflalo.
But enough about the old, let’s talk about the new! It’s 2016, baybay! Time to crack open the champagne, have a toast, and lie to ourselves about what New Year’s resolutions we’re going to maintain this time around!
With J.R. Smith gone, it’s hard to imagine any of the Knicks will be going particularly wild this New Year’s Eve, but the team in general absolutely must not only make some resolutions, but make sure to work at them.
While the team has been a nice surprise thus far, the Knicks are still a few games out of the playoff hunt and have to make some changes, as well as avoid some changes, climb the Eastern Conference leaderboard.
But what are these resolutions, and how can the Knicks go about achieving them?
Get Carmelo Anthony His Shot Back
While I’ve been quick to praise Carmelo Anthony for how he’s evolved his game to become both a stronger defender and a better ball distributor, Melo has actually struggled at the skill that has become his trademark — scoring.
Through 30 games, Anthony was shooting what would be a career-low 42.5 percent from the field and averaging only 21.9 points per game, his lowest since 2004-05. Just a year removed from season-ending knee surgery, Melo has struggled at the rim, shooting only 53.7 percent from within three feet of the rim, the lowest mark of his career.
It’s obviously disappointing that Carmelo’s scoring has taken a hit this year as he’s been so good at almost everything else, but with his increased effort on the defensive end, it’s not too surprising that he’s seen a statistical drop on the other side of the ball.
Still though, Anthony can be a borderline unstoppable scorer when he’s at his best and if the Knicks want to make any type of playoff push, they’ll need Carmelo to be a more consistently excellent scorer.
Whatever Lance Thomas Is Eating, Keep Feeding It To Him
Where did this man come from!?!
Before getting to New York last season, Lance Thomas was a complete and utter NBA afterthought. In three and a half seasons playing for the New Orleans Pelicans and Oklahoma City Thunder, Thomas played an average of 20 minutes a game once, in his 22-game stint with OKC last season, and had a career-high average of 5.1 points per game, also last season with the Thunder.
After his somewhat solid, but still invisible, start to the season last year in Oklahoma City, Lance was traded to the Knicks in the same deal that sent Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith out of New York and after a solid finish to the season last year (Thomas averaged 8.3 points per game on 43.4 percent shooting and played in 26 minutes per game), Lance has become a crucial part of the Knicks rotation this season.
Unbelievably, Thomas is scoring 9.0 points per game, shooting 49 percent from the field and 42 percent from deep, plus getting a consistent 21 minutes a game. Outside of the minutes, all of those statistics absolutely blow Thomas’ previous career highs out of the water.
Lance has given the Knicks a spark off the bench all season with his shockingly confident scoring ability and the team must keep that ability rolling in the new year, as the team is lacking in scorers capable of getting to the basket in its’ second unit.
Get Kristaps The Dang Ball
This applies mostly to the fourth quarter, as Kristaps has taken the second-most field-goal attempts on the Knicks by a wide margin (Melo has 541, KP has 371, and Arron Afflalo has 279).
However, the fourth quarter has been a struggle for Porzingis. After putting up 113, 85, and 93 attempts in the first three quarters respectively, Kristaps has shot only 70 times in the fourth, well below Melo’s mark of 111, but also only one shot above Afflalo’s mark of 69 and 12 back of Langston Galloway‘s 82 shots.
Obviously, in today’s NBA guards and wing players naturally are going to get shots late in games as teams generally shoot the deep ball more often in the fourth quarter. But Kristaps has shot the ball well from outside, hitting 33.3 percent of his three pointers, as well as showing a consistent ability to get himself to the room.
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For whatever reason, Porzingis has had difficulty gaining the trust of teammates late in games, as it sometimes feels that he’s being frozen out down the stretch. KP has already hit his fair share of clutch shots and with many anointing him the future of the franchise, it’s important that he gets featured more heavily in the fourth quarter in 2016.
All Statistics Courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and ShotAnalytics.com.