New York Knicks: Is J.R. Smith Primed for a Breakout Season?

The New York Knicks are heading into a very uncertain 2014-15 season, and one of the most uncertain players on the roster is shooting guard J.R. Smith. He won the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award two years ago, but was an absolute non-factor last season. Now that he is under new head coach Derek Fisher and Phil Jackson is running the team, things might change for Smith.

Quite simply, he will not be allowed to mess around on the court or off the court like he did this past season. The Knicks are looking to completely change the era of basketball, and they will be looking for a major change in behavior from their players. Smith fits much better into a strict style of organization, and that is exactly what New York has become.

Smith ended up playing in 74 regular season games with the Knicks last year, starting in 37 of those appearances. He averaged 14.5 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 3.0 assists per game, and his shooting numbers were extremely inconsistent. His overall shooting percentage was 41.5 percent, but he ended up knocking down 39.4 percent of his three-point shots. The Knicks will be asking him to become a much more consistent scorer to help take pressure off of Anthony, and he showed at times last season that he is more than capable of doing that.

As you can see from the above chart, Smith is much more effective when he shoots the three or gets to the rim. Unfortunately for the Knicks, he settled for lesser quality mid-range jump shots last season. If he wants to fix his game this coming season, he will need to focus on getting back to what makes him most effective.

New York isn’t likely to compete for a championship this season, but anytime Carmelo Anthony is on the roster you can never count them out. Jackson has done a lot of work to the roster this past offseason, and they look to have fixed quite a few of the attitude issues that were on the team last year. Perhaps that will help Smith get back to focusing on his game on the court rather than his antics.

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Is this season a potential breakout year for Smith? Possibly. He will control whether or not he rebounds off of the most inconsistent season that he has had with the Knicks to this point.

There is no question that Smith has the potential to play like the Sixth Man of the Year award winner from two seasons ago. He is still a deadly three-point shooter and has all the athletic ability in the world. Everything depends on whether or not he decides to grow up and focus on basketball.

Fisher will be running the same triangle offense that allowed so many great shooters to succeed with the Los Angeles Lakers. Smith will have a perfect opportunity to showcase his skills, and he can’t afford to pass it up. If he continues to struggle with the consistency issues that have plagued him throughout his career, there won’t be many teams that will take the risk of having his attitude break up their team chemistry.

All of that being said, this is a make or break season for Smith. He needs to get back to the basics and play his game, and only then will he get back to being the successful scorer that he is capable of being. Expect to see a much more focused J.R. Smith this season, and for the Knicks to make a surprising run to a playoff seed with Smith being the number two option behind Anthony.