Zach Harper’s Knicks offseason report: Overall grade, roster breakdown, goals for 2021-22

The NBA offseason! It feels like it never stops. Except here’s the thing: I think we’ve gotten to a place where it’s basically over and we’re just treading water until we get to training camp toward the end of September. Sure, we might get a trade request from a disgruntled star player before we get to preseason, and that request might be approved by his incumbent team. For the most part, however, it feels like we know where the free agents are and where rosters stand heading into next season.

With that, I thought it was a good time to look at how rosters changed and what it means for all 30 NBA teams. We can do that by examining what happened to them last season, how their four groups of players (lead guards, wings, forwards and bigs) changed this summer, whether or not the team got better, how they find success with the new group and giving them an overall grade for the summer. Also, we’ll bring you a local or national expert to answer three pressing questions about this team.

How an offseason ended up for each team depends on what its goals are for constructing its group of guys. These are the statuses available:

• Rebuilding franchise
• Tired-of-rebuilding franchise
• Play-In Tournament gives them life
• Playoff hopeful
• On the brink of contention
• Contender
• Championship or bust

We’re going in reverse order in terms of team success from last season. The previous offseason recap was the Atlanta Hawks. Here is a landing page for all of the team reports that will come out during this period.

We now break down the 41-31 New York Knicks, who finally got out of being the punchline and now have to figure out how to consistently be the puncher.

Overall offseason grade: B-
Team status: Playoff hopeful

What happened last season?

Tom Thibodeau happened. Remember that really awkward tenure he had in Minnesota in which he quickly figured out what it’s like to have dual citizenship between the sidelines and the front office? Nobody else really does either after this past season. Thibodeau did what so many coaches have struggled to do over the past decade. He created a culture within the chaos of the Knicks organization that players embraced and helped bring them back to the postseason. It helped to have a new regime with Leon Rose, his buddy, in charge of the front office dealings.

Thibodeau managed to get a lot of young players on board defensively, and they rode the hot hand and the improved game of Julius Randle into the four-seed in the Eastern Conference. Randle was spectacular too, earning himself the Most Improved Player Award and All-NBA honors.

Randle received help on the offensive end from RJ Barrett, who took the lumps from his first season in the league and quickly figured out how to make it work in his second season. The Knicks brought in Derrick Rose via trade in the middle of the season to provide more stability in the backcourt. Immanuel Quickley emerged as the energizer rookie, instead of the expected Obi Toppin. The Knicks rode great performances from role players such as Reggie Bullock and Alec Burks. They got great defensive efforts from Mitchell Robinson (before his injury) and Nerlens Noel. The Knicks carved out a defensive identity, and it brought them above .500 and back to the postseason. They lost in five games to Atlanta in the first round, but Madison Square Garden hasn’t rocked like that in a long time.

Positional changes

We may have some quibbles over which players belong in specific groups, but I’m just going with my overall impressions of where they did belong and where they probably will belong next season. Not ordered in expected depth chart.

(Lead guards are just considered the main initiators from the backcourt position.)

Transactions: Signed Kemba Walker (two years, $18 million) | Re-signed Derrick Rose (three years, $43 million) | Drafted Miles McBride with 36th pick | Renounced free agent rights to Elfrid Payton, Frank Ntilikina and Jared Harper

Did Knicks improve here? Absolutely. I don’t know how much Walker has left in his tank, and obviously, the injuries of the past couple years will be a concern, but Walker’s presence on this team will far surpass what Payton was being asked to do. Before we even get into Walker as a leader, his ability to break down a defense and knock down shots is a massive upgrade. It allows Rose and Quickley to just be change-of-pace guys and complementary pieces off the bench. The Knicks really lacked a proper lead guard for huge stretches in the postseason. Walker brings that. I also like acquiring McBride on draft night. He’ll need time to develop, but he’s another guy who can make offense happen as a lead guard.

(Wings will do some playmaking, but they’re mostly there to get the job done from the perimeter in various scoring or 3-and-D roles.)

Transactions: Signed Evan Fournier (four years, $78 million) | Re-signed Alec Burks (three years, $30 million) | Signed Dwayne Bacon (one year) | Drafted Quentin Grimes with 25th pick | Signed MJ Walker (one year) | Renounced free-agent rights to Theo Pinson

Did Knicks improve here? Technically, they did. This is where diehard Knicks fans and I will disagree. Fournier is technically a better player than Bullock. He has more talent. However, I do not like the Fournier signing for them when Bullock signed in Dallas for less than half that money. Bullock is a better defender. He also is a better 3-point shooter, but Fournier is a better scorer overall, and that was an issue for the Knicks in the postseason. I understand why going from the backcourt of Payton and Bullock to Walker and Fournier feels like a massive upgrade, but I think the Bullock-to-Fournier part of it doesn’t fit as well. I do like the deal on which they brought Burks back. I like signing Bacon for depth. I love acquiring Grimes as a second-unit scorer at some point. I just don’t like the Fournier addition.

(Bigger guys who aren’t quite wings across the board, but they’re not consistently playing big enough to get the full-time “big” distinction.)

Transactions: Extended Julius Randle (four years, $117 million) | Signed Aamir Simms (one year)

Did Knicks improve here? The Knicks did not improve here. Simms might end up being a guy for their back-end rotation at some point, but it won’t be any time soon. The hope is Toppin is ready for heavy backup minutes, or that Kevin Knox magically improves his brutal production on both ends of the floor. The real move for the Knicks here was extending Randle. Getting him for under $30 million per season after the year he just put together feels like a massive discount. Had he become an unrestricted free agent, he probably ends up getting a lot more.

(The big fellas; it’s pretty self-explanatory at this point.)

Transactions: Re-signed Nerlens Noel (three years, $32 million) | Re-signed Taj Gibson (one year, $2.7 million) | Drafted Jericho Sims with 58th pick

Did Knicks improve here? The Knicks did not improve here, although I’m a big fan of Sims. He won’t play for the Knicks this season unless there are massive injuries. He’s good insurance if the Knicks don’t get Robinson to return consistently healthy, but counting on the 58th pick in the draft to matter as a rookie probably isn’t logical. They bring back Noel on a nice value here, especially if he keeps playing like he did last season. The key for everything will be Robinson getting back to normal and being the athletic freak they need anchoring that defense.

Did the team get better?

Even though I don’t like the Fournier addition or the value play of him at his money over Bullock at his money (assuming that was an option for bringing Bullock back), I do believe the Knicks got better this offseason. They’ve addressed some holes on the roster, and they’ve brought in some exciting young players to build out the depth down the road. Most of their improvement will come from within. Barrett is still extremely young, and his second season should be hyper-encouraging that he’s going to figure it all out. Quickley, Toppin and a healthy Robinson all should provide a lot of support. Fournier in the mix as a scorer will keep plenty of defenses honest as they try to wrangle Randle. Most importantly, they don’t need Walker to be a $30 million-plus player here. His contract is very below market because of the buyout from Oklahoma City. Justifying his money and providing the necessary leadership on and off the court shouldn’t be difficult at all.

What does it mean for next season?

How do the Knicks turn the success of last season and the moves this summer into further success next year? That’s going to be tricky, simply due to the landscape in the Eastern Conference. The Knicks — barring massive injuries up and down the East — aren’t going to be better than Philadelphia (even with a Ben Simmons deal), Brooklyn or Milwaukee. It would take injuries to Miami for New York to be considered better than them as well. Boston shouldn’t be nearly as bad as it was last season, and Atlanta has established itself as a team knocking on the door of an upper tier in the conference. That could leave New York in the Play-In Tournament pool with teams like Chicago, Charlotte, Washington, Toronto and Indiana.

Should the Knicks be better than those teams? Yes, I think they should. But that doesn’t mean things can’t get weird in a Play-In Tournament scenario.

With mostly the same group from the previous season, the Knicks went from 23rd in defensive rating to fourth in their first year under Thibodeau. That’s during a chaotic schedule of a season in which they didn’t really have time to practice a ton. That will change this season. Can the Knicks sustain — or even improve — that defensive execution all season long and manage to improve the offense as well? Will Walker and Fournier boost the offense that much? They went from 27th to 22nd under Thibodeau in one year, but they also didn’t have a lot of offensive options. That should change now, and they’ll need to find balance in order to build upon last season. If they find that balance, it may keep them out of the Play-In Tournament and bump one of their peers in the East down into the chaos.

Three quick questions with Mike Vorkunov, Knicks beat writer and soon to be The Athletic’s basketball business writer

1. Does Kemba Walker solve their issues at starting point guard?

If he’s healthy, he does. That’s a big if. He played 43 games last year and 56 the season before that. It’s not just the amount of games but also if he can play at a level high enough to warrant being a starter. The Knicks do have depth in case Walker can’t handle the load for the full season. They have Derrick Rose and Immanuel Quickley too, so they’ve built themselves enough cushion where they should never be in a situation like last season where they were losing the first seven minutes or so of each first and third quarter. Even Miles McBride looks like he can give them some good minutes in a pinch. The Knicks will undoubtedly manage the workload for Rose and Walker throughout the season to get them to the playoffs, but the ceiling on this team is already higher just by replacing Elfrid Payton.

2. What’s next for RJ Barrett unlocking this game in his third season?

It’s still the shooting. He hit 40 percent of his 3s last season, but he’s got to do it again (or somewhere close) to show he’s consistent and it wasn’t just a limited sample-size fluke. He made strides as a spot-up shooter, so the next step is improving his shooting off the dribble. He took 288 catch-and-shoot 3s last season but just 20 pull-up 3s (and hit just six of them). Barrett also can get better as a finisher at the rim. There’s still a lot of room for growth for Barrett and plenty of room to become more efficient.

3. Does this team have enough offense to push it deeper into the postseason?

Here’s the funny thing about the Knicks last season: They were actually good offensively. They had the 17th-best offense from the moment Derrick Rose got to New York and were 13th in offensive rating from April 1 onward. And they were third in 3-point percentage for the whole season. There will be some regression this season from the returning players, but the Knicks have also upgraded the talent. They could send out a lineup next season with four players who can create shots for themselves. There was no point in the season last year when they could say that. That doesn’t mean this will all work and the Knicks will suddenly become a top-five offense, but they’ve made a few additions here and there that should fit together and could have them smelling a top-10 offense. Now, will it work in the playoffs? That’s another story altogether, but they have built a roster that shouldn’t repeat the problems of this past spring. 

Team status goal by end of 2021-22: Playoff hopeful

Related reading

Zach Harper: More 2021 offseason reports from across the league

(Photo of Julius Randle: Wendell Cruz / USA Today)