New York Knicks: Why Kenny Atkinson is the man for the job

Kenny Atkinson has shown he can develop talent, but why should the New York Knicks be so eager to hire a recently fired career sub-.500 head coach?

It’s hard to be more appealing to future employers when you’re unemployed than when you have a job, but Kenny Atkinson found the secret. Backed into a corner by two superstars and their BFF, Atkinson chose to fall on his sword rather than face a firing squad at season’s end.

The move has more than paid off. Unemployed Atkinson is getting more love than Brooklyn Nets head coach Atkinson ever did. Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and DeAndre Jordan became the villains, while Atkinson escaped criticism for his performance as a head coach and became a candidate for the same job with the New York Knicks.

Tom Thibodeau remains the clear favorite for the job. He’s tight with president Leon Rose, and Patrick Ewing is a fan. Still, while many assumed Rose would just hand the job over to his buddy, we’ve now learned it’s the opposite.

Rose is reportedly in the middle of a lengthy coaching search involving many candidates. But according to SNY’s Ian Begley, there is legitimate internal support within the organization to make Atkinson the next head coach.

Renowned for his player development, Atkinson has built up a following with Knicks fans who believe he can bring the best out of New York’s young players. Those same fans are typically anti-Thibs.

He knows the Knicks from his time working on Mike D’Antoni’s staff. So, despite his subpar win-loss record, particularly in comparison to Thibs, there’s no other coach available with his Kenny’s track record of developing talent.

One of the fascinating things about Atkinson is how the coach receives most of his attention for his offense when, in reality, his defenses were stronger during his Brooklyn tenure.

In his three full seasons with the Nets, Kenny never had a team finish higher than 19th in offensive rating. Part of that can be blamed on personnel. When Atkinson finally got a roster for a legitimate contending team, he didn’t even get to coach them.

The Nets ranked in the top five in 3-point attempts in each of Atkinson’s seasons at the helm. Everyone had the green light, from D’Angelo Russell and Joe Harris to Quincy Acy and Treveon Graham.

The Knicks were easily the worst 3-point shooting team in the league this season, ranking 30th in makes, 29th in attempts, and 29th in effective field goal percentage.

According to Cleaning the Glass, New York ranked fifth in the frequency of shots at the rim but ninth in the frequency of mid-range shots. For context, only one other team that ranked in the top 15 in MR frequency also ranked in the top 10 in frequency ATR, the Indiana Pacers at 10th.

With Atkinson, prioritizing the mid-range will never be a problem. His teams never finished higher than 26th in frequency.

The Nets played a similar defense to the Milwaukee Bucks. Not as good, of course, but they still did it at a pretty high level.

Atkinson’s Nets would drop Jarrett Allen and DeAndre Jordan down in the paint like Milwaukee does with Brook Lopez, allowing shots from the mid-range while preventing any good looks at the rim.

Per Cleaning the Glass, Brooklyn finished last season third in opponent’s 3-point percentage and 10th in opponent’s field goal percentage at the rim.

Every team needs a DeMarre Carroll who fights over a screen to chase down an excellent 3-point shooter. Who does this remind you of, Knicks fans?

New York Frank Ntilikina for that. People are surely excited about what a defensive-minded coach like Thibs can do with Frank, but Atkinson won’t overlook Frank’s defensive potential just because the kid can’t hit a shot.

Atkinson deserves a little credit for helping D’Angelo Russell when his confidence was shot — even if Russell won’t. But DLo was the second pick in the 2015 draft. Giving him the keys to your offense wasn’t rocket science.

Let’s also toss some credit Kenny’s way for recognizing that Al Horford and Brook Lopez should be taking threes.

Atkinson was an assistant with the Atlanta Hawks and worked with Horford, saying the former All-Star was skeptical at first but embraced the 3-pointer after the two practiced all summer.

Horford attempted 65 3-pointers in his first eight seasons. In year nine, he shot four times that (256) and connected at a respectable 34.4 percent clip. The 3-point shot is now an integral part of Horford’s offensive game as he’s become one of the league’s best pick and pop bigs.

The same can be said even more of Lopez. In 2016-17, Atkinson’s first season with the team, he gave Lopez — who up until that point had 31 career 3-point attempts — the green light.

The big man launched a whopping 387 deep balls and converted at a 34.6 percent rate. Last season in Milwaukee, Lopez finished in the top-20 in 3-point makes, which helped him earn a nice $52 million contract.

If there’s any chance Mitchell Robinson can expand his game outside the paint, Atkinson will pull that out of him.

And don’t forget Bojan Bogdanovic. After struggling in his first two seasons with the Nets, Bogdanovic got more touches during Atkinson’s first season with the team. His scoring went up and the Nets were able to trade him for the pick that turned into Jarrett Allen.

Atkinson gets a lot of credit for first-round picks Allen and Caris LeVert.

Allen was considered a project as the 22nd pick following one season at Texas, but Atkinson and his staff helped turn the kid into a legitimate NBA starter at 20 years old. LeVert, on the other hand, flashed All-Star potential with a memorable run vs. the Philadelphia 76ers in the playoffs last season.

But Atkinson’s most impressive work has been with Joe Harris, Spencer Dinwiddie, DeMarre Carroll, and Trevor Booker. And let’s not overlook the fact that Rondae Hollis-Jefferson averaged 13.9 points per game on a Kenny Atkinson team.

Four years ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers traded Joe Harris to the Orlando Magic a week after he underwent season-ending surgery on his foot. The Magic cut him the same day.

Harris got no run alongside LeBron James. On a bad Brooklyn team, he got a shot in the rotation. He averaged 21.9 minutes per game his first year with the Nets after logging 9.1 per game in his first two with the Cavs.

Last season, Harris led the league in 3-point percentage (.474), but he’s evolved into more than just a traditional catch-and-shoot guard. He’s improved each season in the league as a ball-handler who can attack the rim.

According to NBA Stats, Harris averaged 3.0 drives per game during his first season in Brooklyn. This season, that number was 6.4 per game.

The Detroit Pistons gave up on a 22-year-old Dinwiddie after 46 games in two seasons, and the Chicago Bulls gave up on him before he ever played a game for their team. The attitude that Detroit and Chicago labeled as arrogance is a big part of why he was so successful under Atkinson.

That team always had an underdog mentality to them. Of course, that was gone when they signed two of the league’s biggest stars, but Dinwiddie played with a chip on his shoulder. He went from a guy two lousy teams gave up on to a guy playing All-Star level basketball.

In the absence of Kyrie Irving this season, Dinwiddie took control of the Nets offense. He had career-highs in points, shots, and usage rate. He remains a vital part of Brooklyn’s rotation in Atkinson’s absence.

Then there’s DeMarre Carroll and Trevor Booker. Neither player was a spring chicken when they got to Brooklyn. Booker was 29, and Carroll was 31.

The league thought Carroll was washed after he flamed out as a Toronto Raptor. Instead, he came into Brooklyn and set new career marks in points, rebounds, assists and 3-pointers made.

The only time Trevor Booker averaged double-digit points per game in his career was with Kenny Atkinson’s Nets. He also posted career-highs in rebounding, assists, and steals.

The most critical job from Atkinson may have been his work with former Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin during the prime of Linsanity. Unlike Russell, Lin is more than willing to offer Atkinson some praise.

Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck chronicled the bond between Atkinson and Lin back in 2016. Lin states that even though he was the 15th man, Kenny treated him like a star player even before the craziness of Linsanity started.

They stayed close even after Lin and Atkinson had both left New York with Atkinson praising Lin via text about his game. It’s no surprise they reunited in Brooklyn. Things didn’t go well — injuries limited Lin to 37 games in two seasons before the Nets traded him — but their friendship indicates the type of coach Atkinson is.

Before his fallout with Kyrie, KD, and DJ, we believed that Atkinson was a player’s coach. In March of last year, The Athletic’s Michael Scotto published an article titled ‘The type of coach you want to play for’: How Kenny Atkinson has transformed the culture in Brooklyn.

“I think he’s a player’s coach,” said former Net Allen Crabbe. “Not just a coach. He really cares about his players. He puts his players in situations to succeed.”

That same article features a couple of jaw-dropping quotes from DeMarre Carroll about his old coach: “He moved from just development and started learning some Xs and Os.” Carroll added, “I think he’s now understanding out of bounds after timeout plays.”

The article was published almost three full years after Kenny was hired. It likely didn’t take him three years to learn Xs and Os or understand the importance of out of bounds plays. Carroll may be being hyperbolic, but the comment is still worth mentioning.

The Knicks fans who pine for Jeff Van Gundy likely won’t care for Kenny Atkinson’s Knicks while the fans who want to see Mitch shoot threes will probably love watching the squad Kenny puts out there.

After David Fizdale made such a mess of things, the young players must have a coach who will come in and facilitate their progress that Fiz worked so hard to impede. Kenny Atkinson is that coach and he should get the chance to show it.

All statistics are pulled from Basketball-Reference unless otherwise noted and are accurate as of July 3, 2020.