3. Work on the shot
Even the most loyal members of the Frank hive will acknowledge his jump shot needs work. The proof is apparent in the numbers.
According to Basketball-Reference, exactly 216 players have logged at least 3,500 minutes dating back to Ntilikina’s debut season in 2017-18. Ntilikina ranks dead last out of 216 in effective field goal and true shooting percentage.
But Ntilikina showed improvement in 2019-20. His shooting percentages were at career-highs across the board. Frank’s improvement from the free-throw line provides enthusiasm for his 3-point shot in the future.
Ntilikina didn’t take a lot of free throws, but when he did, they went in. His percentage from the line was an extremely efficient 86.4 percent.
Sophomore Frank in 2018-19 was the only player of the 290 to log 900 minutes in that season to record an effective field goal percentage below 40 percent.
But in 2019-20, Frank’s eFG% lept up to 45.9 percent. There’s still a lot of work to do, but it was higher than teammates Elfrid Payton, Kevin Knox, and RJ Barrett. Yes, the Knicks had four players in the bottom 10 in effective field goal percentage in the same season.
After a concerning decline from downtown in 2018-19, Ntilikina got his 3-point percentage back to a much more respectable 32.1 percent. His effectiveness from the corners was a big part of that success. He shot 52.0 percent on corner threes (93rd percentile for point guards), per Cleaning the Glass, which indicates the potential for success moving forward.