New York Knicks: Ranking the young core by trade value
By Chip Murphy
3. Kevin Knox
This season couldn’t have gone worse for Kevin Knox. New York’s free agency additions pushed the 20-year-old to the back of the rotation.
Jonathan Macri of Knicks Film School highlights Knox’s unique decrease in minutes this season. As a rookie, Knox led the team in minutes played, but this season he only finished 8th.
Knox shot 34.3 percent from 3-point range on 4.9 attempts per game as a rookie, but that number dropped to 32.7 percent on fewer attempts (2.7).
According to NBA.com, rookie Knox shot 37.5 percent from the corners, but this season he was just 25.5 percent. On catch and shoot 3s, he dipped from 34 percent to 31 percent.
With all that said, I hate to go with a typical NBA cliche, but Knox is still so young. According to Basketball-Reference, only 27 players younger than Knox saw NBA action this season.
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Knox would be easy to move. He’s under team control for the following two seasons before he hits restricted free agency. If the jump shot we heard about at draft time comes along, Knox could turn into the 3-and-D stud John Calipari promised new York.
A source tells The New York Post’s Marc Berman that Leon Rose still doesn’t know what to make of Kevin Knox. He’s not alone.
Knox has the body to be another Trevor Ariza he’d need to improve his off the ball defense dramatically – but it also wouldn’t surprise if he were struggling for a roster spot in five years.
It’d still be surprising if another team weren’t willing to take a shot on him.