Cleveland Cavaliers: Ranking the NBA’s best young cores

9. New York Knicks

Potential All-Stars: RJ Barrett

The New York Knicks were desperately hoping they wouldn’t still be discussing young cores this season, but after losing the Zion Williamson sweepstakes and missing out on every big-name NBA free agent this summer, here we are.

While the pain of not signing Kevin Durant or Kyrie Irving still stings, the Knicks have a reason for optimism. Players such as Kevin Knox, Mitchell Robinson, Frank Ntilikina and Dennis Smith Jr. will now have a chance to rebuild this historic franchise with RJ Barrett as their potential leader.

The Knicks have high hopes for Barrett. The versatile forward showed how valuable he could one day become when he had a fantastic season for Duke, averaging 22.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game.

There are some major questions around his decision making and shot selection, but there is no doubt Barrett has serious star potential inside of his game.

As for the rest of the young Knicks players, there is plenty of work for them to do. Smith is a solid scorer but is wildly inefficient and far from consistent.

Meanwhile, Knox and Ntilikina have some troubling offensive tendencies, both shooting below 40 percent from the field. Robinson is likely their most promising prospect, but is mostly only effective on the defensive end, averaging 2.4 blocks per game last year.

New York has some raw talent on this roster that could one day turn into something special. Sadly, we haven’t seen enough from any of these players to have too much faith in them just yet.

Cavaliers takeaway:

The Cavaliers don’t have any forwards on the level of RJ Barrett and this is something they should look to acquire. This league might be more guard-driven than ever, but the need for dominant forwards/centers is still important.