New York Knicks: Analyzing free agent guard Jordan Clarkson

Jordan Clarkson would add scoring to a weak New York Knicks offense, but there’s a clear risk that comes with signing him.

I realize I’m entering shark-infested waters by even exploring the possibility of bringing Jordan Clarkson to the New York Knicks. I might as well be advocating to trade Frank Ntilikina for Russell Westbrook.

But the Knicks are terrible. So terrible that you can’t rule anything out. No front office with the 28th-ranked offense in the NBA should ignore a player with Clarkson’s scoring ability.

New York has not had a legitimate bench scoring option in a long time. The last Knick not named J.R. Smith to average 15 points per game or more off the bench was Al Harrington in 2008-09. Clarkson has done that in each of the last two seasons, coming off the bench and four times in his seven-year career. He’s a legitimate threat.

That’s why it’s going to be hard to pry Clarkson away from the Utah Jazz. The Athletic’s Joe Vardon (paywall) expressed how high the organization was high on Clarkson “from top to bottom.” Joe Ingles told Ryan McDonald of The Desert News during the Orlando bubble that Clarkson was one of the greatest human beings he’d ever been around.

Utah was desperate for a player like Clarkson, and he more than delivered. He was the team’s third-leading scorer following the trade, stepping up in Mike Conley’s absence. Playing in a winning situation again with a good coach — Clarkson played well in his short stint with the LeBron and Ty Lue-led Cavs — likely played a role in that success.

The high pressure of playing for the New York Knicks shouldn’t bother Clarkson either. In addition to playing for the LeBron James-era Cavs, he spent three-and-a-half seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers — two of those with Kobe Bryant.

Clarkson spoke to McDonald about his relationship with Jazz coach Quin Snyder:

"“It’s been great. A lot of open dialogue, not even about basketball, about a lot of different stuff that’s going on in the world, just everything. We sit down and talk. Us being in this environment, in this bubble, made us a lot closer, especially my teammates, just everybody.”"

Tom Thibodeau is a big reason Clarkson in New York can work. Nate Robinson — a player with a reputation similar to Clarkson’s — had nothing but good things to say about Thibs dating back to their time together in Chicago and Boston. Robinson told SNY’s Ian Begley about his old coach, “If (there’s) anybody that can change the Knicks, it’s probably him.”

Thibodeau has won with defensively-challenged players before. He can do it again. If Clarkson is willing to be coached — I feel like we say that all the time now with old coaches — he will fit right in. He seemed to get along well with Snyder, and that dude is not known for being warm and fuzzy.

Something else that should attract the New York Knicks and Thibs to Clarkson is his improved efficiency. According to Second Spectrum, Clarkson ranked 15th in points per touch out of the 258 players who played in 50 games last season. For context, Clarkson ranked 82nd out of 297 in that category in 2018-19.

Clarkson is coming off career-bests in effective field goal percentage (eFG) and true shooting percentage. The bar wasn’t set very high — before this season, he’d never recorded an eFG higher than 51 percent — but it’s still an improvement. Clarkson hitting 40 percent on catch and shoot 3-pointers for the first time was a big part of that improvement.

Clarkson’s always made his open shots, but this year he did at an especially high clip. When Clarkson was wide open — no defender within six or more feet of the shooter — he made 42.2 percent of his 3-point attempts, per NBA Stats.

The combo guard was solid around the rim last season too. In 654 minutes with Cleveland, he converted 62 percent of his attempts (54th percentile for a wing). He was even better in Utah. In 1,021 minutes with the Jazz, Clarkson shot 68 percent (86th percentile), per Cleaning the Glass.

The 28-year-old averaged 8.9 drives per game last season, per NBA Stats. Of the 108 players who averaged at least 5 drives per game (min. 40 GP), Clarkson finished 19th in field goal percentage and 22nd in points percentage.

But the warning signs are there with Clarkson. You don’t want him going out there, chucking up 20 shots every night and taking control of the offense. There’s such a thing as too much Jordan Clarkson.

According to Basketball-Reference, he was one of the 47 players who recorded a usage percentage of over 25 percent in the 2019-20 season (min. 1,000 minutes). Out of those 47, he ranked last in points per game and 45th in assists ahead of just Kristaps Porzingis and Montrezl Harrell.

Clarkson’s shooting did improve, but there are still concerns there. As good as he was on catch and shoot 3-pointers, he shot just 32.2 percent on pull-ups. Even more concerning is the fact that he was even worse on pull-ups in 2018-19 — 27.2 percent.

Pull up threes are a tough shot for great players, and Clarkson isn’t James Harden. For context, Clarkson took 171 pull up triples last season — the same amount as Lou Williams.

All of this goes into why you don’t want him to take complete control of your offense. Despite being considered a combo guard, Clarkson is a pure scorer. According to BBall-Ref, he’s played 20 percent of his career minutes at point guard and 73 percent at shooting guard.

Clarkson averages just 2.6 assists per game for his career to 1.7 turnovers. He’s only had three games with double-digit assists in his career, and the last one was so long ago he was still playing with Julius Randle on the Lakers.

But there’s one major caveat that could throw a monkey wrench into this whole thing. For this to work, Clarkson needs to be willing to accept a bench role on a bad team. That’s probably going to be a hard sell.

Why would he do that when he can do the same thing on a good team? Maybe he’ll laugh it off, but I doubt it. The New York Knicks should at least give Clarkson a look. They’re not in any position to turn away talent.