New York Knicks: 5 takeaways from the 2018-19 NBA season

4. Rookies: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

In the 2018 NBA Draft, the Knicks drafted Kevin Knox with their first round selection and some guy named Mitchell Robinson in the second-round. Then they signed the undrafted Allonzo Trier on a two-way contract.

After his stellar NBA Summer League performances, Kevin Knox was supposed to be a sort of special young talent in the league. Instead, he had a pretty steep learning curve. There’s no other way to put it. He was horrendous at times on offense and abysmal on defense.

If opinions won’t do for you, here’s a stat: Kevin Knox had the worst box-plus-minus (BPM) in the entire league this season with a BPM of -8.5. George King of the Phoenix Suns did have a -9.0, but he only spent six minutes on the court during the entire season, thus making him ineligible to qualify.

Then, you have Mitchell Robinson, the rookie who averaged 2.4 blocks per game — more than Rudy Gobert and Anthony Davis who are both known as defensive monsters. And get this, Robinson only played 20.6 minutes per game.

Robinson was tied with Hassan Whiteside for most blocks in a single game throughout the regular season with nine blocks, and he did that in 22 minutes of playing time. Unreal.

Last but not least, Allonzo Trier came out of nowhere and exceeded expectations since day 1. He posted great shooting percentages, especially for a rookie, ranking him amongst the 30 best shooters in the league from 3-point range.

His 10.9 points per game scoring average managed to earn him a two-year contract, with a team option to be picked during the upcoming summer. Even though Trier played better than everybody expected, his contribution was limited to the offensive end, as he would be nowhere to be found on the defensive end of the court.

The Knicks had a variety of completely different rookies in 2018-19. To be fair, a season of basketball is usually not enough to judge a player’s entire career, as many rookies tend to struggle early on.