In order to contend, Knicks must build bench first

With limited cap space, the Knicks would be wise to focus their offseason efforts on strengthening the bench

WikiMedia Commons

Acquiring low-cost talent has been a challenge for the New York Knicks for awhile. Recently, Knicks general manager Scott Perry has turned the team into the Island of Misfit Former Lottery Picks. Since coming onboard last July, Perry has acquired Michael Beasley, Enes Kanter, Doug McDermott, Trey Burke and Emmanuel Mudiay as an attempt to unlock some hidden potential. He took a flier on a player with off-the-charts athleticism in Troy Williams. He assembled a staff that focused on player development and it has instantly paid off dividends with New York’s G-League team, the Westchester Knicks, securing the best regular season record in the Eastern Conference this year.

Though no fault of Perry’s, the Knicks are expected to enter 2018 free agency with essentially no cap space. Assuming Kanter and Ron Baker accept their player options and Kyle O’Quinn declines his, New York can only sign players using minimum contracts or the mid-level exception. If New York wants to add talent other than through the draft, they’re going to need to get lucky, creative and thrifty. Their financial situation is by no means a good one but if any positive can be found, it’s that it will be extremely hard for New York to overpay bench players who aren’t deserving of inflated contracts.

So given the salary cap implications and the absence of Porzingis, the best way for the Knicks to improve next season and beyond is to focus on building a stronger bench by adding young talent. If the Knicks build their bench correctly, it will translate into more wins. And if New York wins more games, they’ll be looked at more favorably by free agents. Simple, yes?

The Knicks’ bench has performed largely below average this season. The good news is that they’re first in assists per game, third in blocks, fifth in field goal percentage, ninth in steals, 11th in rebounds and 12th in points. However, the Knicks excel in those categories because they’re sixth in the league in bench minutes played and have a copious amount of big men to bring up the rebounds, blocks and field goal percentage stats.

The bad news is that they’re 23rd in free throw percentage, 23rd in three-point percentage, 24th in three-pointers attempted, 28th in turnovers. And those are just the traditional statistics…

The advanced statistics are unkind as well: 20th in offensive rating, 17th in defensive rating, 19th in net rating, 15th in assist percentage, 20th in assist to turnover ratio, 14th in effective field goal percentage, 18th in true shooting percentage, 27th in fast break points and 29th in opponent points off turnovers. There’s plenty of room for improvement here.

What benches can the Knicks look at for inspiration?

The Toronto Raptors are an elite team this season. One of the main reasons, if not the main reason the Raptors are so talented this year, is because of their depth. The most frequent starting unit for Toronto has been Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, OG Anunoby, Serge Ibaka and Jonas Valanciunas. Those five players earn a combined $93,611,283. The Raptors’ bench earns $21,771,433. Yes, the bench with the best net rating earns almost four-and-a-half times less than the starting unit.

For perspective, the Knicks owe Baker, Lance Thomas and Joakim Noah a combined $28,748,325 this season and $30,194,050 next season. To make matters worse, Baker and Noah will have played a combined 36 games this season (that’s 22% of all possible games).

Fred VanVleet (99.8), Pascal Siakam (101.8), Delon Wright (102.0), CJ Miles (102.3) and Jakob Poeltl (102.7) all have defensive ratings less than 103. The average bench has a defensive rating of 105.8. And what’s more, those players are doing it on offense too: VanVleet (112.8), Poeltl (111.9), Siakam (111.3), Wright (110.6) and Miles (109.9). These are players averaging over 18 minutes a game, with only 11 combined games started between them, and all except for Wright and Miles have a higher offensive rating than the Houston Rockets and their top offensive bench (110.8). Hell, those five players have the league’s 23rd-best net rating in the NBA (20.2), and it’s the only one in the top 25 entirely comprised of bench players!

Meanwhile, the Knicks’ five-man lineup with the best net rating is Jarrett Jack-Courtney Lee-Tim Hardaway-Kristaps Porzingis-Enes Kanter (7.4), good for 89th in the NBA.

Toronto had its dynamic core largely in place and built a superior bench around those players. What can the Knicks do if they don’t necessarily have their core veterans? Can they take the opposite approach? Yes. Yes they can.

The 2015–16 Boston Celtics are another example of what the Knicks could try to emulate next season. Those Celtics had a coach in Brad Stevens who took a team of role players, all of whom (except for David Lee) were 28 years old or younger, to the playoffs with a 48–34 record. The Celtics as a team had the 10th-best offensive rating and the fourth-best defensive rating that season. Their bench had the 13th-best offense, fifth-best defense and ninth-best net rating overall.

The following offseason, the Celtics added Jaylen Brown in the draft and then signed Al Horford, one of the most underrated centers in the league, after he felt he could fit and compete in Boston. The Celtics won five more games in the 2016–17 season, drafted Jayson Tatum, signed Gordon Hayward because of their progress and then traded for Kyrie Irving. Within two years, the Celtics went from a squad of role players who over-delivered to a top-five NBA team. The even crazier part is that only two players from that 2015–16 squad (Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier) remain.

This isn’t to say that if the Knicks can or will finish with a record like the 2015–16 Celtics next year and be a top-five NBA team the year after, but it’s something they should at least aspire to be, even without Porzingis. It’s a path the Knicks can learn from and embrace, even without a pair of top-three picks.

What might the Knicks’ bench look like next year?

Let’s assume that next year’s starters with Porzingis injured are Frank Ntilikina, Hardaway, the first round pick, another forward and Kanter.

Here’s what New York currently has and what it could have:

Kyle O’Quinn: Phenomenal passing big who is easily the Knicks’ most excitable locker room guy. The advantage the Knicks have is that most of the league has little to no cap space either and that the draft lottery and the free agent market should be flooded with big men.

Trey Burke: He’s a spark plug off the bench who can still get major minutes. Starting off with a defense-first lineup in Ntilikina and this year’s first round pick at small forward would hide Hardaway on defense and let him shift to his more natural position as a 2-guard. Burke can then provide that punch off the bench and still close out games.

Courtney Lee: Has struggled this season. Best two-man rating of the year has been -0.3 (47th on the team) and his partner was Porzingis. If the Knicks don’t trade Lee, the team must move him to the bench. While the bench would gain a solid three-point shooting reserve (39.8%), the 33-year old Lee would also be taking minutes away from the team’s young guards.

Ron Baker: Baker’s a tenacious defender who was given a contract offer a bit too expensive for the team’s own good. He doesn’t cripple them financially by any stretch, but New York bid against themselves for Baker’s services.

Lance Thomas: Key locker room figure shooting over 40% from three-point range despite a limited sample size (1.7 attempts per game). Defense is supposedly his calling card but the team has performed about the same with him on the floor (112.1) than off the floor (112.8).

Emmanuel Mudiay: Thrown into the fire too quickly with the Denver Nuggets as a rookie, Mudiay’s perhaps a cautionary tale when it comes to Ntilikina this year. He then languished on the Denver bench, was traded and given the keys to run a completely new offense on a team that lost its best player. The best way for the 22-year old to develop is to put in work this summer, come off the bench and, for the love of God, stop falling seemingly every time he goes for a layup, leading to a fast break opportunity for New York’s opponent.

Troy Williams: An explosive player who can handle the 3 and the 4. Over 85% of Williams’ shots this year were either at the rim or behind the arc. He’s out for the season with a fractured jaw, but if Williams can connect on more threes, he has a sizable role on this team moving forward.

Damyean Dotson: Rookie wing who hasn’t received much burn in the NBA but averaged 18.2 points and six rebounds per game on 48.9/38.5/76.7 shooting splits.

Joakim Noah: A backup center who isn’t going anywhere any time soon. Likely returns if head coach Jeff Hornacek is relieved of his duties. Stretching Noah’s contract or attaching assets to dump his salary would be counterproductive.

Chicago Bulls’ Second Round Pick: Considering that the pick is likely to land between 36th and 38th, this is New York’s chance to acquire players with late first round talent who have fallen to the second round. All about best player available here, though the team should be mindful of how many guards and centers it already has.

Free Agents: Michael Beasley is a scoring machine whose net rating as a starter is -14 while his net rating as a reserve is -7. He has a -13.1 net rating alongside Kanter. If, for some reason, the Knicks and Beasley renew their marriage vows, it should be with Beasley as a bench scorer and not as a starter.

Jack played admirably in the beginning of the season and has been a mentor for Ntilikina. Given New York’s point guard depth and Jack’s age (35), he’s better off playing for a contender if a team needs a backup point guard next season.

Unrestricted free agents Jerami Grant and Mario Hezonja as well as restricted free agents Kyle Anderson and Davis Bertans could be potential options for the Knicks. New York would likely only be able to sign one of these players. They may want to look into Hezonja or Bertans to better space the floor if the Knicks are infatuated with Williams for the long term. Keep in mind that Perry was part of the front office that drafted Hezonja in 2015 and has had a penchant for taking a chance on former lottery picks.

How can they improve?

Ideally, the bench improves thanks to a new head coach who can get more out of his players defensively as well as acquiring athletic players who prioritize defense and three-pointers while excelling in transition.

A trade here, a draft pick there and a free agent signing or two sprinkled in could do wonders for New York’s bench next season. Before Porzingis was injured, the Knicks’ bench had the 17th-highest net rating. Since his injury, New York’s bench is 26th. Even in the wake of his absence, finishing next season better than 15th should be New York’s top priority. As you can see from recent history, there’s a correlation between bench success and team wins.

Interestingly enough, the Celtics have primarily acquired big men who are more offensively-gifted than defensively (Kelly Olynyk, Jared Sullinger, Greg Monroe) while adding guards who weren’t talented scorers in college (Marcus Smart, Terry Rozier, Jaylen Brown). The Knicks don’t have to copy what the Celtics have done but it goes to show that there are several different ways to skin a cat.

New York needs an infusion of premier talent, likely coming from the open market, to be a contender. For right now though, the team should be focusing on planting the seeds for the future and locking down supporting talent long term and for cheap. Then when the cap clears up in 2019 and beyond, the Knicks can prove to stars that they can win with Porzingis, Hardaway, Ntilikina, some other pieces acquired along the way and a deep, cost-efficient bench.