With the New York Knicks offseason officially underway and Jeff Hornacek in place as head coach, it’s time to look back at last season’s roster to evaluate each player’s year and whether or not they’ll play a role in the franchises future. Up next? Sasha Vujacic.
Another year, another missed postseason for the New York Knicks.
Just a year removed from a dreadful, franchise-worst 17-win season, the Knicks came into this season with a renewed sense of hope thanks to the drafting of Kristaps Porzingis and additions of Robin Lopez and Arron Afflalo — not to mention a now healthy Carmelo Anthony, another year under the belt of coach Derek Fisher, and a full offseason for 2014-15 breakout guard Langston Galloway!
Who knew, maybe this team could even sneak their way into the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference!
Well, things never really panned out.
While Kristaps shocked many by how absolutely incredible he was, RoLo and Afflalo had a rocky debut season in New York, Melo still missed a bunch of games due to lingering knee issues, and Fisher didn’t even make it to the All-Star Break before getting the axe.
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The final results? An improved record, but still far out of the playoff picture, as the team finished at 30-52 — a particularly tough record to swallow when you consider that the Knicks kicked the season off at 20-20 through the first 40 games.
Still, that is 13 more wins than the previous year and with the duo of Anthony and Kristaps forming a nice one-two punch to build around, there’s reason to be excited about New York basketball again, maybe.
Just Thursday, team president Phil Jackson officially made Jeff Hornacek his new head coach, a major shock considering he had reportedly given Hornacek permission to scrap Jackson’s coveted triangle offense.
With free agency and the draft just around the corner, it’s time for both the team and their fans to look back at the past season and analyze each player from the franchises roster in order to see how they’ll fit into Jackson and Hornacek’s vision for the future. We’ve already looked back at Kevin Seraphin and Kyle O’Quinn, so who’s next?
None other than The Machine, Sasha Vujacic.
Let’s not kid ourselves, Sasha Vujacic was never really signed as a player.
Sure, the contract says “player,” and the guy averaged 14.9 minutes per game this year, but that wasn’t really his role. After all, Sasha had been out of the NBA for an entire season when he decided to team up with Jackson again, having last played more than two games in a season way back in 2010-11 with the Los Angeles Lakers and New Jersey Nets.
No, Vujacic was inked much more to act as an on-floor coach. He’d won multiple rings with Jackson and Fisher in Los Angeles and was considered by most as someone with an excellent understanding of the triangle offense, a scheme that was still very much in its infant stages with this Knicks team.
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At 31 years old, Sasha might not still be any type of impact player, but at least he could help facilitate the offense a bit if all went well.
The problem in that thought process was that it was still believed Sasha could at least do some good on the floor in an immediate, obvious capacity. Well, that thought process was wrong.
Sasha was bad this year. Very bad.
Shooting just 38.3 percent from the field, his lowest field goal percentage since his second season in the league, and turning it over a career high 1.7 times per 35 minutes, Vujacic was routinely the weak link for the Knicks this year.
His most glaring weakness? Defense, where he had only 0.8 Defensive Win Shares, the third lowest on the team of players who appeared in at least 41 games this season. At times, he looked like a ghost on that side of the ball, and you can see that defensive presence below.
That’s Wes Mathews, a decent but not great player, throwing a half-hearted pump fake and slowly meandering his way to the rim while pretty much blowing by Sasha. That defense earned the man $1.3 million this year, so there’s that.
Fear not though, because we also have video evidence of Vujacic being aggressively bad on offense as well!
There’s Sasha, left wide open in the corner with the Knicks just out of reach down four against the Sacramento Kings late in the fourth quarter…and tossing up an absolute air ball.
But it wasn’t just a ball that was long/short, but otherwise on-line. Those happen to the best of us. No, this was both long and wide left, followed by an absolutely horrid attempt to draw a foul by kicking his leg out on Rajon Rondo. Genuinely impressive stuff.
Then, we have the grand finale of Sasha’s season, where we get to see his inability to do anything even remotely useful on offense, followed immediately by his complete lack of interest on the defensive side.
That’s a pull-up, contested three-pointer in transition, which in itself is worthy of a benching for someone who has a career mark of 37 percent from deep (a good, not great number). But The Machine ain’t done there.
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Nope, he manages to do the right thing by getting himself back into good defensive position on the other end…only to throw a half-hearted attempt at drawing a charge.
The result: What was probably the easiest three-point play of Stanley Johnson’s young career. I mean, that was probably what gave the kid the confidence to proclaim he was in LeBron James’ head during the first round of the playoffs.
So with all that covered, it isn’t particularly likely that Vujacic will be finding his way back into the blue and orange next season. With Hornacek likely scrapping the triangle offense in favor of a more up-tempo scheme, Sasha’s sole purpose on this team has now essentially been eviscerated. Simply put, there’s just no reason to have the now 32-year-old on the team’s roster come opening night next season.
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If getting rid of Sasha is the only thing Hornacek ever does on the Knicks bench, that’ll be enough for me.