The New York Knicks: The Epitome of Mediocrity

In the NBA, you either want to be great enough to win a championship or bad enough to enter the draft lottery...

Ayden Whyte

 

But the 2022-23 Knicks find themselves in basketball limbo. To better understand their unfortunate situation around this season, we have to start with the off-season. The biggest move for the 2022 off-season was by far the Jalen Brunson signing. The Knicks needed a point guard and a competent ball distributor badly. That's exactly what they got in Jalen Brunson, a guard with all of the necessary skills. He came into that off-season averaging 16.3 PPG, 6.9 APG, and 1.2 SPG (steals per game), all of this while having to play alongside superstar Luka Dončić. The main guard who can score, pass, and play defense perfectly fits the Knicks' timeline. Also in the off-season, the Knicks left fans disappointed by not drafting and signing anybody. Instead, they drafted Ousmane Dieng with the 11th overall pick and traded him away to the Oklahoma City Thunder. But hope was not entirely lost; we still had Summer League to show off what our young players could do. The Knicks had a great Summer League performance, and one player who really stood out was Quentin Grimes. In only 29.3 minutes per game, he averaged 23.5 PPG, 3.8 three-pointers made, 4.5 RPG, 4.3 APG, and 1.3 SPG. His stellar performance helped the Knicks to the Summer League Finals and cemented his spot on the official roster.

Now to break down the issues. Starting with the draft. This year's draft is one that the Knicks' front office should be ashamed of. They've never been known to be a spectacular front office, but this is particularly bad; they wasted a lottery pick on a player that isn't NBA-ready, then sent them off to another team for nothing. They drafted Ousmane over Tari Eason, Jalen Duren, Dalen Terry, MarJon Beauchamp, and the list could go on. All rookies having stellar seasons that could have potentially been in Knicks uniforms. However, it's unfair to be too harsh on the front office for this; it was impossible for them to know how all of those players would have panned out. But to walk away from the draft with a lottery pick and nothing to show for it is shameful, quite frankly.

Then there's the shooting guard problem. The answer is simple. Quentin Grimes should be starting and receiving significantly more minutes than Evan Fournier. He has proved himself to be the more reliable player many times before, and Evan has been terribly inconsistent this season. He is averaging 6.9 PPG and shooting a career-low 33% from the 3-point line. Unacceptable for a starter. Luckily, Tom Thibodeau has been moving toward Cam Reddish at the starting spot. But regardless, a true shooting guard should be in the shooting guard position, and Grimes is that quintessential shooting guard.

To end on a positive note, signing Jalen Brunson has been nothing but a plus for the team. He is averaging 20 PPG, and 6.9 APG, and playing elite defense all at the same time. Julius Randle may not be helping the team win, but his stats are reminiscent of his Most Improved Player Season. Once Tom Thibodeau is fired (or fixes his rotations) maybe we'll be back on track. At the time of writing this, the team is 8-7; at least they're plus .500 despite only existing in basketball limbo.