The second half of the NBA season is upon us. OK, not really the second half. The Knicks are 23-36 already and there are only 23 games remaining. What do the Knicks have to look forward to the rest of the season? We’ve got some ideas.
1. Welcome to Tankruary. The most important question lingering over the Knicks is how high a draft pick they can land. They own the ninth-worst record in the NBA right now, but the road to worst isn’t clear. The eight teams above them are pretty damn bad. The Hawks and Suns (both 18-41) have a five-game head start. The Lakers, just a game better than the Knicks, are lingering right behind them. Which is to say there are 10 pretty bad teams all fighting for draft lottery odds (except for the Nets — the Cavaliers own their pick). Right now, the Knicks have a 6.1 percent chance at a top-3 pick and 1.7 percent chance at No. 1. The Knicks have made it clear they’re not going to willingly tank but it may just happen by default considering the state of the roster and how bad they’ve been lately.
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2. Will coach Jeff Hornacek finally commit to playing the young guys? Jarrett Jack played 28 minutes in Wednesday’s loss to the Wizards. Hornacek chose winning — the Knicks blew a 27-point lead so that didn’t work out — over development. It seems he’s willing to change that once the Knicks return to play. The Knicks will practice twice before they return to action in Orlando Thursday night and Hornacek intimated those sessions will be used to give reps to Frank Ntilikina, Emmanuel Mudiay, Trey Burke and the rest of the youth on the roster. Who will start at point guard: Ntilikina or Mudiay, or both — sending Courtney Lee to the bench?
3. Getting minutes for Ntilikina and Mudiay is important, but how will they play? Mudiay, 21, has three games under his belt with the Knicks. Ntilikina has 56 games of NBA experience and he’s only 19 years old. They’ll probably share a backcourt for a significant amount of time but it’s important Ntilikina gets his share of ball-handling duty after Mudiay took the lion’s share after the trade. The Knicks coaching staff has worked with Ntilikina about being more aggressive on the ball and in the lane. Mudiay needs to work on his defense, which ranks poor to abysmal according to various analytics.
4. Mudiay’s passing vision in transition will remain worth watching. He’s hit Kyle O’Quinn twice with ¾ court outlet passes and he likes to play with his eyes up in transition. When he arrived in New York, Mudiay gave the team’s bigs a heads up to run upcourt, with the knowledge that he’d be looking for them.
“I just tell them when they’re running keep an eye on it because I’m going to throw over the top,” he told The Athletic. “Because the bigs they always run with their head backs.”
He added: “You throw ahead, less plays, easy buckets. That’s kind of how I play. Coach he told me we haven’t had a lot of advance passes recently but he said that’s the way we gotta start playing. So I’m real comfortable doing that.”
5. Will we see Joakim Noah again? He hasn’t played since January 23 and is away from the team for the indefinite future after a reported altercation with Hornacek. He’s midway through a four-year, $72 million contract signed before last season, but has played just 53 games for the Knicks and hasn’t been all that effective. The Knicks can bring him back, hope he mends fences, and amortizes that contract over the final two-plus seasons. Or they can try a buyout, but why would Noah give up a single dollar remaining on his deal without some kind of guarantee of recouping it somewhere else? They can waive him, either eating the money for the remainder of the contract or they can waive him with the stretch provision — spreading out the $36 million over the next five years. None of those are great options.
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6. What about the two Knicks players on two-way contracts? Luke Kornet has shown flashes of being a stretch-five, while Isaiah Hicks gives the Knicks a bouncy big they’ve been missing. When he joined the team on their last road trip, one player remarked they finally had someone they could throw lob passes to. O’Quinn could opt out this summer. There isn’t much frontcourt depth behind him. What will the Knicks see from these two the rest of the year?
7. Ready for the Michael Beasley show? He’s averaging 17.8 shots per game in the four games without Porzingis and is averaging 18.8 points per game. He and Tim Hardaway Jr. might be holding up the bulk of the scoring from here on out. Beasley loves to operate out of isolation — putting himself in iso situations 22.1 percent of the time, which is fifth-most of any player who’s played 30 or more games this season. Beasley is in the 66th percentile in points per possession on isolations, according to Synergy Sports. He’s always been a super-talented scorer and now he might get the opportunity to flash those skills while playing on a one-year, $2.1 million deal.
8. Can Tim Hardaway Jr. find his shot and stay consistent with it? This might not be shocking, but Hardaway Jr. is shooting 35.7 percent from three in Knicks wins and 29.3 percent in losses. More than a possible correlation between Hardaway’s shooting and victory is how volatile he has been this season. The final game before the break was more proof: 32 points in the first half, five points in the second. He’s scored 25 or more points eight times this year and in single-digits nine times. Hardaway will get the ball more over the final 23 games than he did before Porzingis got hurt but can he be more efficient
9. Will the Knicks get any moments the rest of the year worth remembering and resuscitating this season? Kristaps Porzingis is out for the year so he can’t brighten things up. What about Ntilikina? Is this the best moment of the Knicks season?
(Photo by Matteo Marchi/Getty Images)
