Since taking over for Derek Fisher, New York Knicks interim head coach Kurt Rambis has shown a clear ineptitude for the position.
With only a month and a half left in the NBA season, it’s becoming fairly clear what the New York Knicks are.
After a 22-22 start to the season, the Knicks now sit at 25-35, five games out of the Eastern Conference’s final playoff spot. This is still a team very much in the midst of rebuilding, only one year removed from a dreadful 17-win season, and while there are some nice pieces here, the general consensus is that there simply isn’t enough firepower for a legitimate playoff push this time around.
With the team’s head coach Derek Fisher being fired right before the All-Star Break, team president Phil Jackson appointed Kurt Rambis as the interim head coach for the remainder of the year and already, Rambis is showing why that may have been a mistake.
Rambis, who went an astounding 32-132 while serving as the head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves, has long been known as a Triangle offense disciple, with Jackson himself calling Kurt one of the best Triangle minds in today’s NBA. In only six games at the helm of the Knicks, Rambis has shown that simply may not matter.
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New York has gone 2-4 in those six games and while they may be coming off of their biggest win since Jan. 29, Rambis has done some basic stuff that makes you question his ability to help the Knicks moving forward.
New York may be out of the playoff picture at this point, but that definitely doesn’t mean the rest of the season is a waste. The focus around this team has now turned to keeping Carmelo Anthony healthy and insuring the growth of budding stars, such as Kristaps Porzingis and Jerian Grant. Kurt Rambis seems more than willing to not do either of those two things.
Anthony’s health has become a relatively major concern for the Knicks over the past two seasons. After inking a five-year, $124 million deal in 2014, Anthony played in only 40 games last year, missing the entire second half of the season due to knee surgery. At 31 years old and coming off of major knee surgery, Melo’s health over the remainder of his contract obviously has to be a major discussion point for this team due to the sheer amount of money the Knicks have put into him.
This season, Anthony’s health has continued to be a major story.
To this point, Melo has missed seven games — often due to knee soreness — and the Knicks have gone 0-7 in those games. What’s odd is that Anthony has been playing the best basketball of his career this season when he is healthy, with career highs in defensive rebounding and assists.
Obviously, this leaves the Knicks in a dilemma. With the season essentially done for New York, do you really want to ride Anthony into the ground for the remainder of the year? This is clearly a guy that, when healthy, can play at an extremely high level, so why risk that health moving forward?
Kurt Rambis seems content on giving Melo heavy minutes regardless. Despite playing for essentially nothing at this point, Anthony has been on the court more than his season average of 35 minutes per game in five of the six games Rambis has been in charge for, hitting the 40-minute mark once. Now, those minutes are beginning to get to Melo. In his past two games, Anthony has shot a combined 12-for-42, an awful 29 percent shooting clip.
Anthony is far from the dominant scorer he once was, but if he’s going to be shooting that poorly plus risking injury, you have to question what the point is of having him play as much as he has under Rambis.
Even more important for Rambis and the Knicks, however, is how he manages the maturation of Kristaps Porzingis and Jerian Grant down the stretch.
The play of Kristaps has been, undoubtedly, the best story around the Knicks this season.
Drafted fourth overall last offseason, Kristaps was met by a chorus of boos from he New York faithful, many of which expected him to be just another stiff, soft European player that would be little more than a role player. Remember, this was a fanbase that had just gotten out of the Andrea Bargnani-era.
In the span of just a few months, Porzingis has turned those boos into roars.
Already, he’s won three Rookie of the Month awards and seems primed for a fourth, as well as being locked in a battle with Karl-Anthony Towns for Rookie of the Year honors. He’s obviously still only 20 years old, but considering Porzingis is averaging 14.1 PPG, 7.4 RPG and 1.9 BPG, it appears the future of the Knicks is in extremely good hands.
Of course, those hands can be taken away depending on how the Knicks management handles Kristaps. Thus far, Rambis has actually done a nice job with his star!
In the six games Rambis has been at the helm for, KP has averaged 16.8 PPG, 4.2 RPG and 1.7 BPG while shooting 47 percent from the field. Rambis has set Porzingis up with more pick-and-pop opportunities at the top of the floor and it’s really worked nicely thus far, as Kristaps seems more than willing to set a hard screen up top then do something with the ball after that.
It’s actually been Kurt’s off-court handling of KP that has many concerned. At this point, I think we all know the Porzingis has an almost Kobe Bryant-like mentality, that this kid wants to genuinely be the best he can be and is as tough as they come. Still though, it strikes me as odd that an NBA head coach would call out his rookie the way he has.
Rambis told the New York Daily News after the Knicks win over the Orlando Magic on Friday night that “there are shots out there that he takes that I flat out don’t like.”
Kristaps doesn’t seem like the type to fold up after being publicly criticized by a coach, but it’s still bizarre for Rambis to call out his golden goose. Maybe this is Kurt essentially realizing he isn’t going to be brought back next season and just not caring, but it still struck me as odd that he’d call out the future of the franchise like that in a press conference.
Even more bizarre has been the play of Jerian Grant, or lack thereof.
Grant’s had an up and down rookie season in New York. After the Knicks traded up to take him out of Notre Dame with the 19th overall pick, he’s shown signs of being able to be the point guard of the future, while simultaneously looking completely lost at times.
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At 6’4″ and with lightning fast speed, Grant may be the most athletic backcourt presence the Knicks have had in over a decade. All that speed and athleticism has been offset by Grant’s complete inability to shoot though, as he’s shot 36 percent from the field and a truly horrific 17.5 percent from deep. In the midrange-heavy triangle offense, not being able to shoot at all is a legitimate problem and to that extent, it’s easy to understand why his minutes have fluctuated so heavily this season.
With the season essentially over though, you would think Grant would find a far more consistent role within the rotation. Obviously nobody expects him to be in the starting lineup, but it’s hardly crazy to expect a consistent 15-20 minutes from someone you drafted in the mid-first round. Well, you would think wrong with Kurt Rambis in charge!
After not playing in only three games for the entire Derek Fisher era, Grant has already met that mark in the six games with Rambis in charge. Even more odd? He’s been extremely efficient when he has gotten the chance to play. In those three games, Grant has shot a combined 7-for-12 from the field, including a 2-for-3 mark from behind the arc. His plus/minus in those games has been positve twice and as high as +11.
Rather than have Grant be the second guard off the bench after Langston Galloway, Rambis has given meaningful minutes to Sasha Vujacic, particularly late in games. And hey, if Sasha was playing well, it would make sense to have a savvy-veteran leading the offense in the fourth quarter. The problem is that Sasha hasn’t just struggled, he’s been downright awful. Vujacic has yet to make a shot with Rambis in charge, going 0-for-8 and having last made a field goal attempt on Feb. 7.
To be clear, Rambis is starting this guy instead of a first round pick:
I don’t think anyone expected a lot from Kurt Rambis when he was named interim head coach. This is a guy who had a near-slavish devotion to the Triangle offense, a system that may or may not be outdated, as well as having a career winning percentage of only 28 percent. Essentially, he was given the keys to the car for the next month and a half and told by Phil Jackson not to drive it off a cliff.
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But are we sure he hasn’t driven this team off a cliff, or at least into a ditch? He’s overplayed a now depleted Carmelo Anthony, publicly called out the future of the franchise, and has played Sasha Vujacic over a top pick from last year’s draft. Generally speaking, when a coach says his team’s biggest problem is that they aren’t trying hard enough, they shouldn’t be in charge.
Now, it has become clear that Kurt Rambis is far from the right fit for the New York Knicks.