The Knicks this year have been more than a little disappointing considering the season they were coming off of, but why? Is any one person to blame? Who were the bright spots on this team, and what should we expect for the future?

The Bad

There were quite a lot of bad things this year. As I write this, the Knicks are currently 11 games below .500 and all but eliminated from play-in contention, sitting 5 games behind the Hawks with 9 more to go in the season. There were a bunch of contributors to this 

Tom Thibodeau’s coaching style

Something about the way Thibs coached didn’t mesh well with our roster this year. His rotations gave the starters and veterans brutal minutes, but left talented young players to scrap for PT while the older guys were getting hurt. Players like Toppin, Grimes, McBride, and (up until recently) Sims saw very few minutes compared to the promise they had. Meanwhile, the overplaying of players like Rose, Barrett, and Noel led to injury. Injuries like these, as well as the issues with Kemba Walker, led into another huge problem for the Knicks

No Real Point Guards

For the second half of the season, the Knicks have gone without a real point guard. Walker has been out of the lineup forever (and will most likely get shipped out this offseason), Rose has been hurt since December, and Quickley isn’t a true point guard. His shot selection is too poor for that role. So the Knicks have no real point guard. Quickley and Burks have tried admirably, and the signing of Ryan Arcidiacono might have helped had he gotten minutes, but the fact remains that the Knicks have no real facilitator. It leads to sloppy offense and poor shot selection, and perhaps the biggest blight on this season from the Knicks

Hero Ball

There were way too many isolations called by players who can’t play iso well this year. Our starting lineup (and the bench to some extent) have tried to make this work all year but they can’t. It leads to poor shot selections, drops in efficiency from some of our best players, and a Knicks play style that means we jump out to early leads and collapse once our starters lose their momentum. It’s a truly unfortunate sight to see, and it is led by the brightest spot from last year’s season

Julius Randle following up an All-NBA selection

Last year, Randle exploded. He played incredibly and efficiently to earn himself player of the month honors, an all-star game selection, the Most Improved Player award and a spot on the all-NBA second team. His play split the fanbase down the middle on what to expect from him this year, and he wasn’t able to really keep that magic that he had last year. He has all but abandoned the post fadeaway game that gave him so many buckets last year, and instead isos from the wing, dribbles a lot and makes no forward progress, and then shoots a poorly advised shot. It’s a little painful to see in all honesty. He still played better than when we first got him, but he wasn’t able to provide the Knicks with the same play that got them to the 4th seed last year. 

Injury Problems

The Knicks put together a very injury prone lineup this year, and it took its toll on us very quickly. Rose and Walker are perhaps the two most injury-prone starting caliber point guards in the league, and Walker’s legs turned to dust and Rose needed surgery a couple of months into the season. At the 5, Robinson and Noel are not faring much better, and have each missed decent portions of the season healing various injuries that they have sustained. R.J Barett missed a little time with an ankle sprain coming off the break, and these injuries to some of our best players took away a lot of the strength we have, especially at the point guard position

The Good

For what it’s worth, this year hasn’t been all bad. There were a couple of great moments this year, mostly coming from one or two places, that can give us hope for next year.

R.J Barrett

This has been far and away the best year of R.J Barett’s career. Sure, he got off to a little bit of a slow start, but he has been on a tear the second half of the year. He’s been averaging 25.6, 6.7, and 3.8 since the all star break, and he looks like he could be poised to become an all-star next year. Granted, his efficiency, especially when it comes to free-throw consistency, could use some improvement, but he is turning out to be a great number 1 option for us in the years to come

The Young Players

Our young guns have been extremely impressive in limited playing time this year. Quickley, as I mentioned earlier, has been attempting admirably to be a point guard, and his post all-star break averages have been impressive, and his per 36s have been even better. Obi Toppin is electrifying to watch, a fan favorite, and has played well in a starting role. Quentin Grimes has been shooting lights-out from three, has played well as a starter, and has lived up very well to his 3 and D expectations. Miles McBride has shown great promise in the G-League and has shown incredible hustle in league scenarios. Jericho Sims is also a great hustler, has shown his incredible athleticism in fighting for rebounds, and has been a great rim runner for us with all the injuries to Noel and Robinson lately. 

Consistent Shooting to Finish the Season

The Knicks had a lot of trouble with player efficiency with threes this season, but a lot of our players have shown good shooting percentages from 3. Burks, Fournier, Rose, and Grimes have been shooting elite from 3, and they are all under contract for the next couple of years. With these guys shooting well and more guards on the way with Jokubaitas coming in from overseas, McBride seeing more consistent minutes, and us projected to draft another PG in TyTy Washington, we can expect to see more concrete shooting from the Knicks next year. 

The Takeaway

It’s hard to get something purely good or purely bad based off of this season, but I think that there are one or two main things that we need to carry on into next year. First off, R.J Barrett is our number one option. He’s been playing like an all star, and he is still set to progress even further in the years to come. Secondly, we need to trust our younger players with more reliable minutes, and we also need to give whoever we draft this year some good minutes as well. Our war room has made some incredible picks for the past couple of years, so Thibs needs to give those guys some good minutes. Lastly, we need to know when to sub out our guys. The Knicks have had this incredible tendency to have our momentum collapse in an instant, and we hold our guys out for too long and let the other team come back before we send in our bench unit. So we need to trust our front office with free agency and the draft selections, play R.J like he’s our star player and not Randle, give our young guys more minutes, and know when to sub out our players, and that could get us back to the playoffs like last year.