The New York Knicks are a miserable basketball team. In a weird way, this can helpful for you in fantasy basketball if you can find a way to take advantage of the situation. In the fantasy hoops world, we give zero craps about whether a team is winning or losing games. We’re here for all of your statistics.
One thing that will be plenty abundant over the next 43 games for New York’s players is stats. They traded Iman Shumpert/J.R. Smith, Carmelo Anthony isn’t playing currently and even when he returns is a candidate to be shut down for the season at any moment, Amar’e Stoudemire is dealing with lingering knee issues and Andrea Bargnani is a waste of space.
More from Hoops Habit
- The 5 most dominant NBA players who never won a championship
- 7 Players the Miami Heat might replace Herro with by the trade deadline
- Meet Cooper Flagg: The best American prospect since LeBron James
- Are the Miami Heat laying the groundwork for their next super team?
- Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year NBA players bound to breakout
This leaves us with Quincy Acy, Cole Aldrich, Travis Wear, Jose Calderon, Cleanthony Early, Langston Galloway, Tim Hardaway Jr., Shane Larkin, Pablo Prigioni and Jason Smith. The key here is finding out who and what they’re going to bring.
My rule for fantasy basketball is always go high upside and pass on middling. For me that eliminates Prigioni, Smith and Acy out of the equation. Larkin’s played 852 minutes already this season and despite shooting better, hasn’t really put up any bulk stats. He’s only scored in double figures twice the entire year so I’m not going there.
We’ve already discussed Tim Hardaway Junior so I’m assuming he’s already been picked up in your leagues. In an earlier story I dismissed Cole Aldrich and that was a mistake. Cole has actual fantasy value (throws confetti wohooooooooooooooooo). Over his last 12 games Aldrich is averaging 10 points, 7.4 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.1 blocks on 52.9 percent shooting. That’s a solid center play on a nightly basis. EMBRACE COLE, YOU FOOLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jose Calderon is what he is. You will get some points, assists and threes, but the way this team is constructed is rough on him. Without other players to create it puts him in an awkward position. There’s a chance he could also get traded and that might actually be beneficial. You can hold onto him and play him, just don’t expect anything spectacular outside of an occasional three-point barrage.
This brings us to the last three left — Langston Galloway, Cleanthony Early and Travis Wear.
Out of these my least favorite choice is Wear. In Thursday night’s loss to the Rockets he posted a team high 21 points on 9-of-16 shooting and made 3-of-6 threes. Wear has made 6-of-11 from deep in the last two games. I don’t see this percentage shooting keeping up. Wear has shot 33 percent behind the arc this season and only took 50 total threes in four years of college hoops. If he all of the sudden turned into an above average three-point shooter as a rookie it would be a pretty shocking development.
The two I like for the most upside are Galloway and Early. New York desperately needs a guard with size and ability to break down a defense. Right now Galloway seems like the best option for this set of skills. He’s a rookie out of St. Joe’s and in his first game at Madison Square Garden posted 19 points, four rebounds, three assists and hit three threes. Galloway should continue to see minutes as the Knicks continue to get the crap kicked out of them and his numbers can be reasonably decent.
Early was one of New York’s two second round draft picks. He went off for 16 points on 6-for-10 shooting with six rebounds and two steals in only 25 minutes. There’s no excuse for Early to not be playing 30 minutes a night in the near future. He has three-point range and should give value in points and threes. In a really small sample size he’s made 36 percent from deep and has grabbed 4.2 rebounds per 36 minutes. It will be smart to track how his per 36 numbers continue to look as he gets more run.
If you have any middling players Early and Galloway are guys I would take risks on adding for long-term potential to help you this season. It might take two or three weeks for them to grow into their roles and there is no guarantee they end up panning out. I like taking risks and these two could pay off in a huge way.