The New York Knicks tied for the worst record in franchise history last year. What do they have to do to call 2019-20 a successful season?
The New York Knicks have been a dumpster fire for nearly all of the 20 years they’ve been owned by James Dolan. Since the last remnants of the Jeff Van Gundy-led teams, the team has had three winning seasons in 18 tries, four postseason appearances and just one playoff series victory against a last-hurrah Boston Celtics team in 2013.
Their 2018-19 season featured just 17 wins, tied for worst in franchise history with the 2014-15 edition of the team. Their recent futility has been sufficiently awful to knock a once-proud franchise with two NBA titles and three other trips to the NBA Finals down to a losing record all-time in the regular season (2,778 wins, 2,943 losses).
But there are signs of hope in Gotham. The Knicks got the third overall draft pick and took R.J. Barrett out of Duke University as a consolation prize after the New Orleans Pelicans won the Zion Williamson sweepstakes.
They also have one of the most electric young big men to play basketball in New York since Patrick Ewing in Mitchell Robinson. They’ve added Julius Randle, Marcus Morris, Reggie Bullock,and Taj Gibson through free agency.
And most intriguing of all, the Knicks have nine players on their roster with two or fewer years of NBA experience.
In theory, they should be able to show some signs of life this year. Vegas has them at an over/under of 27 wins, which would be a 10-win improvement over last season. That would be a move like the one the Philadelphia 76ers made the year after they went 10-72 in the 2015-16 season. They won 28 games in 2016-17 and the next year won 52 games and made the second round of the playoffs with a core around Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.
The Knicks might be able to do that with Barrett and Robinson, but they do have several obstacles to overcome.
For one thing, a few of those young players are legitimately awful. Measured by Value Over Replacement Player, Kevin Knox put up the worst season (at minus-2.2 VORP) in NBA history behind Michael Olowokandi’s dreadful minus-2.6 in 1999-2000.
Knox needs to not just show that he’s got a bright future, he needs to show that he’s not deserving of a spot on the list of worst lottery picks of all time. Knox has posted a worse VORP in one year than Andrew Wiggins (minus-1.8) has posted in five.
Frank Ntilikina isn’t much better. Whatever he showed himself capable of in the Basketball World Cup sure hasn’t translated in the NBA. In two years, Ntilikina has posted negative Win Shares (minus-1.8) and negative VORP (minus-1.7) while his defensive advanced stats haven’t matched his reputation as the best defensive player on the team.
Then again, this is the Knicks. Being merely below average at something might just mean you are among the best on that squad.
So bringing this back to the core premise of the headline, what do the Knicks have to do in order to call this season a success?
They need to beat that Vegas over/under. At least a 10-win improvement is an absolute minimum. Knox and Ntilikina need to show they belong in the NBA. If coach David Fizdale can’t develop the young talent on his roster, New York will be left floundering in the depths of the NBA’s oubliette for years to come.
Robinson needs to take his fantastic defensive numbers from his rookie year and repeat them as a sophomore. His 10.0 block percentage would’ve been the highest in NBA history from a player not named Manute Bol if he’d played enough minutes to qualify for the leaderboard.
His 5.2 defensive box plus-minus would’ve topped Rudy Gobert’s 5.1 to lead the league. If he’d played enough minutes, his advanced stats would’ve made him easily the Defensive Player of the Year.
Finally, the Knicks need to understand that the free agents they signed aren’t going to put them in the playoffs. If they don’t give some quality run to their young guys, especially once they’re effectively already eliminated from playoff contention by Thanksgiving, they’ve failed.
They need to act like a rebuilding team. If they win 27 games with all the minutes going to the veterans, that’s not progress.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, but neither did Romulus die in an undeveloped swamp. The Knicks need to learn that lesson of history to better serve their unpredictable future.