With limited options and their playoff door quickly closing, should Phil Jackson and the New York Knicks take a chance on Houston Rockets point guard Ty Lawson?
Things have escalated quickly for the New York Knicks.
It wasn’t too long ago that this team was 20-20 in the midst of the playoff chase in the Eastern Conference. After winning only 17 games all of last season, the Knicks were one of the most surprising stories in the NBA and team president Phil Jackson was being applauded by many for dragging the franchise out of the dark ages.
Just a few weeks later and the Knicks are four games out eighth place at 23-32, having just fired their head coach Derek Fisher and announcing that Kurt Rambis would take his position on an interim basis for the remainder of the season.
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With the trade deadline just days away, Jackson has said that everyone on the roster except for stars Carmelo Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis are available in trade discussions. Suddenly the team that was among the NBA’s brightest is essentially up for sale.
As of this writing, the Knicks have not made any deals and for the most part, haven’t even been mentioned in any realistic rumors. In fact, New York has only lost out on one of their supposed targets thus far–Brandon Jennings, who was traded to the Orlando Magic by the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday along with Ersan Ilyasova in exchange for Tobias Harris.
The point guard position has been the Knicks’ biggest issue throughout the first half, as the team has gotten steady but unremarkable play from starter Jose Calderon and bench threats Langston Galloway and rookie Jerian Grant.
The trio has looked good at points, with Galloway and Grant getting plenty of attention as the future of the Knicks backcourt, but Calderon’s inability to get to the rim to create offense and struggles on defense have haunted New York all season.
Need proof? Ish Smith, of all people, made the Knicks borderline defenseless at points in the Jan. 18 game between the Philadelphia 76ers and Knicks, dropping 16 points and 16 assists and acting as a driving force in the 2OT thriller. Ish Smith did that.
With Jennings apparently off the table until free agency this summer, the list of available starting-caliber backcourt threats is significantly shortened. Atlanta Hawks star Jeff Teague is said to be available, but would likely be out of New York’s price range and Milwaukee Bucks point guard Michael Carter-Williams comes with plenty of issues.
That likely leaves the Knicks with someone star Carmelo Anthony knows quite well–the Houston Rockets’ Ty Lawson.
Lawson, who played alongside Anthony on the Denver Nuggets for his rookie season in 2009-10 and half a season during 2010-11 before Melo was traded to New York, adjusted his contract during the offseason to make the 2016-17 year non-guaranteed.
Essentially, this means that he’ll be able to become a free agent this summer should the Rockets choose not to retain him at just more than $13.2 million for next season.
The trade for Ty appeared to make plenty of sense at the time. Lawson was regarded as one of the better point guards in the league during his time in Denver, averaging 14.2 points and 6.6 assists per game while shooting 47 percent from the field and 37 percent from behind the arc.
Those might not be Russell Westbrook or Stephen Curry numbers, but they’re about as good as it gets after that top tier of point guards and made Lawson a valuable commodity, as Houston parted with a host of role players and a first-rounder in the trade to acquire him.
After making a run to the Western Conference Finals the year before, Lawson was supposed to be the final piece that could make the Rockets a legitimate title contender.
Now, it’s become pretty clear that Lawson’s time as a Rocket has been a complete and utter failure.
In the 48 games he’s played, Lawson has started in only 12 of them, averaging only 23.2 minutes played. Virtually every one of Lawson’s statistics is a career low, from his 6.3 points and 3.6 assists per game to his 39 percent shooting mark. Lawson simply never fit in alongside the ball dominant duo of James Harden and Dwight Howard and struggled to become a threat away from the ball.
After years of being the Nuggets’ primary scorer, acting as the third, fourth, and often fifth banana in Houston just hasn’t worked out.
With the Rockets currently one spot out of the Western Conference playoffs, the team is said to be open to making a variety of deals headed into Thursday, with the main focus being on Dwight Howard. Somehow, after only half a season of struggling, many have forgotten about the 28-year-old Lawson.
In reality, that might be the best thing for the Knicks.
With Lawson acting as little more than an inefficient role player off the bench for the Rockets, there has been little interest in the point guard this trade deadline season. Without much to offer, the Knicks could benefit greatly off of that.
Arguably the best pieces New York would have to offer Houston are the contracts of Robin Lopez, Calderon, or Galloway.
Obviously with Dwight still in town, Lopez would be relegated to a bench role and at $13 million a year, it’s doubtful the Rockets will want to swap one overpaid bench player for another. Where Lopez really would become a big piece is if the Rockets are able to move Howard, but unable to secure a legitimate starting big in return.
RoLo isn’t great by any means, but he’s as solid a center as you’ll find and considering Houston doesn’t want to be tanking, could be a nice fit alongside Harden and company.
Calderon may not be the sexiest of names and clearly has his limitations, but he’d at least give the Rockets a nice, consistent scoring and shooting option off the bench.
Seeing Calderon start alongside Harden would be a defensive nightmare for the Rockets, but it would be interesting to see the two play off each other on offense, as Calderon doesn’t really need the ball in has hands to create shots for himself, and Harden is more than comfortable running an offense.
Finally, there’s Galloway, the lone bright spot in last seasons 17-win campaign. He has shown flashes of being a legitimate long-term player this year, raising his shooting percentage from 39 percent last year up to 42 percent this time around.
Really, his value to the three-happy Rockets would be his shooting (38 percent from behind the arc compared to Lawson’s 34 percent mark this year) and his defense.
He may not be the most gifted defender, but the Knicks have held opponents to 105.8 points per 100 possessions with Galloway on the court compared to a 109.1 mark with him on the bench and you know he’ll at least show up on that side of the ball.
Lawson’s current deal is more than fair if you believe he can return to his old self once he gets away from Harden and the Rockets, especially with the cap ballooning in the next few years.
Obviously, the key part of that sentence is whether or not you believe Lawson can get his groove back. If Jackson thinks that Lawson is simply washed up and done, there’s virtually no value in making a deal for him. But if the Knicks see something there, they may be able to get him on the cheap, a rare opportunity when it comes to talented point guards in todays NBA.
Lawson’s not a great jump shooter, with a career mark of 37 percent from behind the arc, but he has shown an ability to hit a mid-range jumper (44 percent on shots between 10 and 16 feet in his career), a key skill for the Knicks triangle-heavy offense.
Lawson gets to the rim at about the same pace as Galloway, taking 25 percent of his field goal attempts within three feet of the rim last season in Denver. While that isn’t a particularly large portion, it’s more than double the shots Calderon has taken within three feet this season, a potential game changer for an often stagnant Knicks offense.
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Lawson’s contract may not be tiny and to some extent, trading for him is a risk. He may simply be an awful fit on a decent team or he may be washed up. With the Knicks a few games out of the playoffs, now might be the time to take a risk and go after Lawson.
All Statistics Courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com, ShotAnalytics.com, and NBA.com/Stats.