New York Knicks: Brandon Jennings Will Thrive

Despite seeing his career stall, Brandon Jennings finds himself in a great situation with the New York Knicks to return to form.

It’s no secret that the New York Knicks are one of the more intriguing teams heading into the new NBA season. They added Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah to the core or Carmelo Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis.

While these moves have likely come too late in the careers of Noah, Rose and Anthony, the Knicks will be a playoff team next season.

They’ll also be a lot of fun to watch. Some nights their top four players will play to their full potential and former glory and blow teams away. On other nights however, possible injury and the limitations of former stars will cause them to drop winnable contests.

So while all this “superteam” talk seems optimistic at best, Knicks fans now have big name players that they can at least get behind. In today’s NBA however, that alone is not enough to warrant big-time success.

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This is why the bench will be crucial for this team going forward. There is not a lot of proven depth on this roster and that makes backup point guard Brandon Jennings so important.

Jennings has been an afterthought in the league for more than a year now, but really he has found himself in an ideal position in New York.

Those heady days in Milwaukee with the Bucks seem a long time ago now, but Jennings still had success in his next stop with the Detroit Pistons. In fact, before going down with an Achilles injury in January 2015, he was averaging 15.4 points and 6.6 assists a game.

Solid numbers from a guy who was also the full-time starter on that team. What makes those stats even more impressive was that he was playing 28.6 minutes a night, way down from the 34.1 per game he averaged the year before.

Jennings was also posting a Player Efficiency Rating of 19.7, easily a career high at the time. There were still some erratic plays, but there was also a controlled aggression and higher level of understanding for the game.

Unfortunately for him, the Pistons moved on without him while he was out and he found himself surplus to requirements.

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Landing with the Orlando Magic midway through last season, Jennings appeared in only 25 games, starting six. It was thought that he might stick around to mentor the young

, but he had another ideas.

Jennings is only 26 himself after all, still a young player who in theory has yet to enter his prime. The opportunity to join the Knicks and live in New York likely too good a deal to pass up.

But while he has much to prove if he hopes to stick around longer than one season, the Knicks need him more than they realize. Nabbing him for $5 million on a one-year rental is also the kind of low-risk, high-reward move that teams love.

This is because Jennings is a polished offensive player, and will have likely been humbled by his experience with the Magic. He’s capable of being an above average starter if healthy as we’ve seen.

But he can also now come off the bench as he did in Orlando, and provide an offensive spark from there. This will be valuable to the Knicks for a number of reasons.

While getting Rose was a move that caught the eye and will make the team better, his injury record suggests he will miss some time this season.

Although he started and played in 66 games for the Chicago Bulls last year (easily the most since his MVP campaign of 2010-11), he has played in 116 of a possible 320 games in the last four seasons.

So it’s likely he’ll miss even a small bit of time this coming year as well through the litany of knocks he has accumulated throughout his career.

Having Jennings as a backup is a nice choice, as he is comfortable with being a starter as well. Not only did he play in every game in two out of his first three years in the league, he started them all too.

Jennings is also a career 35 percent three-point shooter. Rose comes in at 30 percent. Rose is averaging 6.2 assists per game for his career. Jennings is not far behind with 5.9.

Both are defensive liabilities (Jennings minus-1.7 last year, Rose minus-2.1) but Jennings has at least posted a positive offensive plus/minus for his career (2.1).

Rose on the other hand, has posted negative numbers in that category two out of the last three years, although his career average comes in at 2.2.

Look, it doesn’t matter how effective Jennings is (and his numbers stack up surprisingly favorably vs. Rose) he’s not going to be the full-time starter if Rose is healthy. But if he’s called upon, the production value on the court doesn’t figure to drop that significantly.

If not, the lack of depth on the bench means Jennings will likely be the offensive focal point of the second unit. This suits his style of play as he loves to score, and can do so in a variety of ways.

He’ll have the dependable Kyle O’Quinn to form an underrated pick and roll partnership with. But beyond that there isn’t much on the bench to get excited about (Sasha Vujacic? Justin Holiday?).

This will mean the ball will be in his hands on many possessions to make something happen. Given that the Knicks’ bench ranked 26th in three-point shooting last season, Jennings can only bring offensive positivity to that group.

On a less important note, it’s nice to see him wear the No. 3 jersey again. He played some exciting basketball in Milwaukee with that number. It’s also important to get away from the No. 55 he wore with the Magic.

It’s all well and good scoring 55 points as a rookie, but it’s fair to say Jennings hasn’t done a lot with his career since. New York and the Knicks represent a fresh start.

Next: New York Knicks: 2016-17 Season Outlook

Under the bright lights of Madison Square Garden, expect to see the best version of Brandon Jennings in the NBA to date.