New York Knicks

Knicks First-Half Report Card

Adam Hunger/USA TODAY Sports

It’s the time of the year that all of the bad kids fear, and all of the good kids revere.

What other way is there to tip off a New York Knicks report card than by channeling my inner Walt “Clyde” Frazier and rhyming an intro?

All (bad) jokes aside, with All-Star Weekend just around the corner, now is as good a time as any to assess the first half of the 2015-16 season. Well, maybe with the team losing five of its last six games it isn’t exactly the greatest timing, but this latest streak actually falls in line pretty well with this Knicks team’s identity over its first 51 games.

Sitting at 23-28, the Knicks are about on pace for a 36-win season, which would be close to a 20-game improvement from last season’s disaster, while also surpassing Vegas’s preseason over/under of 31.5 wins. This is good and bad, as the team is clearly exceeding any realistic expectations that were placed on them heading into the season, but also experiencing enough success to make shortcomings seem relatively unacceptable.

In the vacuum of a 50-plus game sample size, it seems fair to say that this Knicks team shouldn’t be a playoff team. But when you consider they’d won 7-of-10 games as of a couple of weeks ago, with a 22-22 record, their free-fall in the time since feels that much worse.

Let’s take a look at some of the good and bad from this Knicks season.

The Good

Anything pro-Knicks this season has to begin with rookie Kristaps Porzingis. A viable candidate for Rookie of the Year, the fourth overall pick from the 2015 NBA Draft has taken New York City by storm, coming into the NBA far more polished than anyone could’ve expected. At 7-foot-3, the Latvian import is averaging 13.8 points, 7.7 rebounds and 1.9 blocks in just 28 minutes per game, while posting the second-best net rating on the team behind Carmelo Anthony (per NBA.com).

It’s incredible that the basketball world collectively laughed when the Knicks fell out of the top three picks at the NBA Draft Lottery last May, but Porzingis falling into their lap already seems like one of the best things to ever happen to the franchise. To be clear, he still has a lot of developing to do, specifically when it comes to strength and conditioning, but he’s already an impactful player on both sides of the court, and has literally brought excitement back to Madison Square Garden:

Blocked shots, silky smooth threes, putback dunks over multiple players on the opposition, heck, Porzingis has even mastered Hakeem Olajuwon’s famous Dream Shake. Regardless of efficiency, Porzingis has shown a full gamut of skills, and with a matching passion for the game, the sky is seemingly the limit for this rookie. It’ll be interesting to see if the Knicks try to work him in at center more over the course of the season, but with him as a 20-year-old cornerstone player, Phil Jackson’s rebuilding job should be a bit easier moving forward.

While Porzingis has been the most exciting aspect of this season for the Knicks, the team probably wouldn’t be nearly as successful (again, a relative term) as they’ve been without his All-Star teammate, Anthony. Coming off knee surgery, Anthony hasn’t exactly looked like the same player he was during the Knicks’ playoff runs from 2011 through 2013, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Leading the team in net rating, scoring, win shares and on-off splits, Anthony’s maintained his status as the team’s on-court leader from a production standpoint, while noticeably taking the helm as its emotional leader as well. Anthony went out of his way early on to take Porzingis under his wing, and we’ve seen the 13-year vet (yep, Melo’s been around THAT long) even come to his rookie’s aid on the court when Atlanta Hawks wing Kent Bazemore got in his face during a January meeting:

As cliche as it is to show that video and scream “HE’S A LEADER NOW SEE!”, Anthony’s backed up his leadership role with one of the best defensive seasons of his career, as he’s posting a 106 defensive rating, which is the third-best rating he’s posted in his career, per Basketball Reference. Anthony’s also “doing the right thing” on the offensive side of the ball, where he’s posting career-bests in assists per game (4.1, the first time he’s averaged four-plus assists per game in his career), and assist percentage (21.6).

The Knicks are 0-6 in games that Anthony’s missed, and as much as some fans may want the team to trade him so they can acquire more assets to help for the future, it seems he’s still capable of making a huge impact both on the court and off the court for this team.

It’s amazing that Porzingis seems to be that second player the Knicks have so desperately needed to add to the fold to build a winner around Anthony. It’s also unfortunate that the two players’ career timelines really don’t match up well at all, even though Porzingis is more of a contributor than Jackson could’ve expected him to be when he drafted him. In fact, Jackson’s big focus last offseason was adding big men to the roster, most of whom have made positive impacts for the team.

Without a doubt Jackson felt Robin Lopez was his prized signing of last summer, and so far he’s worked out pretty nicely. Again, with Porzingis being more ready to play bigger minutes than expected, Lopez feels redundant at times, but he’s a big reason the Knicks are seventh in the NBA in rebounding, as well as fifth in blocked shots. Lopez’s stats don’t really jump off the page at you, but his ability to box out, set screens and protect the rim all contribute to team stats and making his teammates better.

I’m not sure if other signings like Kyle O’Quinn and Kevin Seraphin haven’t worked out or just haven’t been able to find consistent minutes in Derek Fisher’s rotation, but neither have positive net ratings. Porzingis has made it easy to forget about both players, but the O’Quinn signing was met with a lot of positivity, making it disappointing that he hasn’t been more of a contributor.

Relatively speaking, Jackson also hit on his perimeter signings in Arron Afflalo and Derrick Williams. There isn’t a ton to say about Williams, who doesn’t seem to be all that different from the Williams of years past. The guy can score when you make him the focal point of the offense, and his ability/relentlessness to get to the basket and the free throw line make him very valuable and unique to this team. However, he’s shooting a putrid 23 percent from three, has the third-worst defensive rating on the team and hasn’t been a great fit with the Knicks’ slower pace.

As for the team’s starting shooting guard, considering he was never really a positive defender, the Knicks landing Afflalo at $8 million for this season was definitely a win. Afflalo’s a good fit for the Triangle as a player who thrives from mid-range and in post-ups, and he’s done a good job being the supplemental scorer Anthony’s needed the last couple of seasons. An X-factor of sorts, the Knicks are 12-6 in games Afflalo has scored 15 or more points, and if you’re solely depending on him to be your fourth- or fifth-best player, he’s a great fit.

The problem for the Knicks is most nights they need Afflalo to be their second-best player, and sharing a backcourt with Jose Calderon gives the Knicks one of the worst perimeter defenses in the NBA.

The Bad

The way I ended “The Good” section with a bad, I’ll begin the “The Bad” section with a good. Despite Afflalo and Calderon’s defense, the Knicks have the sixth-best three-point percentage allowed in the NBA. However, considering they only give up the 19th-most three point attempts in the league, that stat doesn’t really hold up when you realize the Knicks rank 18th in the league in defensive rating, according to NBA.com.

With Porzingis and Lopez as plus-defenders on the back end, and again even Anthony getting into the swing of things defensively, it really hurts to be so thin in the backcourt. I want to give credit to Afflalo and Calderon again for the Knicks’ offense being as efficient as it is, but it’s a damning stat that the two Knicks guards who play the most minutes are also last and second-to-last on the team in defensive rating, per NBA.com.

Don’t get me wrong, Langston Galloway developing into a viable option as the team’s first guard off the bench has been a pleasant surprise, but offensively he isn’t skilled enough to surpass Calderon, nor really run an offense as his backup. After Galloway, neither rookie Jerian Grant nor Sasha Vujacic, who’s back in the NBA after a four-year absence from the league for the most part, have been able to consistently contribute, making the Knicks’ backcourt situation even worse.

Offensively speaking, Calderon and Afflalo are fine for the most part, especially for the Triangle. “Fine” is a relative term, though, and as long as the roster is constructed the way it is, having these two as your best backcourt players will make the guard spots a weak point for the team.

It’s not even like the Knicks could look to wing players to backup their struggling guards, as the team’s only true small forwards are Anthony, Williams and the much improved Lance Thomas. Thomas has been a plus, especially because he adds defensive diversity to the fold, but he’s often in lineups with Anthony, which doesn’t help in terms of being able to rest their star scorer. Coming off knee surgery, it’s been less than ideal to see Coach Fisher play Anthony heavy minutes in stretches, which has undoubtedly led to him having knee and ankle issues over the past month.

This brings the head coach into the spotlight, and forces me to break into a new category…

To Be Determined

It’s been really easy to pick Fisher apart these last couple of seasons, but it’s still unclear how much of it’s been warranted. When Jackson hired Fisher in the summer of 2014, it wasn’t because he thought Fisher would be able to turn the team around quick-fix style, but because he thought Fisher would be a great student, and someone to implement his vision.

To his credit, the Triangle offense seems to be looking better this season than it did last season, which, go figure, can happen when you have real NBA talent in the lineup. Up until this recent losing streak, it also seemed like the Knicks were coming together and learning how to play together more comfortably. An Anthony injury and Porzingis seemingly hitting the rookie wall, not to mention Calderon being sidelined, can derail progress. But this team needs continuity, badly, and I don’t know that Fisher can’t be the person to orchestrate their comeback.

Whether that comeback will begin this season and result in a playoff berth depends a lot on the team’s health in the second half off the season. We’ve seen them get to .500, we’ve seen them get wins over good teams like Atlanta, Chicago and Houston, and they’ve put teams like San Antonio and Oklahoma City against the ropes. There’s plenty of reason to be optimistic, and all things considered, I feel confident saying they’ve overachieved in the first half of the season, even if they’re five games under .500.

Grade: B-

No, in the grand scheme of the NBA, the Knicks don’t deserve an overwhelmingly positive grade. But just as I’ve asked Knicks fans all season to be patient and keep perspective, I’m going to remain with that Zen mindset and remind you that they’re still in line for a 20-game improvement from last season’s disaster.

This Knicks roster has nine new players on it, and of the six returning players, two are Cleanthony Early and Lou Amundson, who are out for the season and basically out of the rotation. Jackson and Fisher have done a great job developing some (we’re praying for you, Jerian) of the younger players, while also finding good roles for veterans to change the culture and improve the team on both ends.

Last season’s Knicks finished bottom three in both offensive and defensive rating, while this season’s iteration is pretty much middle of the pack in both. It’s also important to keep in mind that Calderon and Afflalo both looked like their best days were well behind them last season, and they’ve been able to bounce back and return to the best forms of themselves.

The biggest problem for the Knicks has been their consistent inconsistency, which can directly be attributed to them having five separate losing streaks of at least three games. In spite of all of that, they were in the playoff hunt just a couple of weeks ago, and with half of the season to go, there’s plenty of reason to believe their best is yet to come.

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