Knicks belong to Kristaps Porzingis now as he dives into 3rd year
By
Zach Harper
Kristaps Porzingis endured a weird couple of seasons to start his NBA career. That tends to be life as a member of the
New York Knicks, where everything is dramatic and the spotlight shines the brightest. When the Knicks play well over the course of the season, they receive more attention than better teams. When the Knicks play laughably over the course of the season, the jokes fly off the shelves at record paces. Because Phil Jackson’s regime drafted Porzingis, the attention heightened in every single, distracting way possible.
That’s what Jackson’s time in New York mostly proved to be — a distraction. The style of play forced on coach after coach distracted from the overall play. Drama between Carmelo Anthony and Jackson distracted from the goals of the Knicks’ players. Comment after comment meant to disrupt the norms of media coverage worked for Jackson. He received the attention he sought in the media with the stuff he said. All the while, the Knicks had this internet-dubbed unicorn both flourishing and being held down in the process.
For now, Porzingis enters his third season in the NBA distraction-free — or as distraction-free as a Knick environment can possibly offer. The media won’t pepper Porzingis and other players with Carmelo drama because Melo just received his trade out of town. We won’t see a point guard like Derrick Rose dominate the ball. We won’t see the triangle offense forced into a round hole on the court. Jeff Hornacek gets to really coach his roster and the Knicks, for now, just get to exist. That means Porzingis just gets to play and the Knicks are officially his team. That heaps a lot of responsibility onto his shoulders, and forces him to not only embrace it but excel with it.
How do the Knicks make Porzingis an actual No. 1 option? How does Kristaps find ways to work within the construct of the Knicks being his team? Will the extra attention from defenses block or accelerate his growth?
First, we need to know what Porzingis has shown us in his first two seasons.
WHAT WE’VE SEEN FROM STAPS SO FAR
The unicorn label makes a lot of sense for Porzingis.
Kristaps is basically the same height as Priest Lauderdale and often moves like a small forward. He lacks some strength with his slight frame, but not enough to truly hinder him playing off the ball. Porzingis showed growth from his rookie to sophomore seasons, as evaluators hope a player of his caliber would do. The Knicks increased his minutes and shot attempts, even though he often sat third in the pecking order behind Carmelo Anthony and Derrick Rose. His shooting percentages on the floor increased, while his free throw accuracy took a hit. The comfort he showed shooting the ball has to make Knicks fans excited for his confidence.
Regarding possession types, Porzingis improved substantially. He was a better spot-up shooter, a smarter cutter, a better scorer coming off screens, and a much better weapon in transition than his rookie season. His production in the pick-and-roll and in isolation stayed about the same, while he declined in the post. Here are his Synergy Sports splits by possession type:
The nonsense of the Knicks being basically forced to run the Triangle offense screwed with how Porzingis was used during his first two seasons. Of players with at least 150 possessions as a pick-and-roll big, Porzingis ranked 20th (out of 35) in scoring efficiency. However, he ranked 31st in frequency of use in the pick-and-roll. With Jackson gone and the Knicks no longer going with an acute approach to offense, we should see more advantageous scoring situations for Porzingis this season. The Knicks want to play modern basketball with a wide-open style that implements more current styles of attacking.
By throwing Porzingis into this approach, the Knicks maximize his skill set. However, there will be some drawbacks as he adapts to the attention.
THE PROBLEMS AHEAD AS STAR PLAYER
HE’LL HAVE TO BECOME A GOOD ISOLATION SCORER
The two biggest areas Porzingis struggles as a “star possession scorer” happen in isolation and posting up. For big men, these tend to be two possession types one needs to operate in to create scoring opportunities. Not everything will come from pick-and-roll plays or coming off screens. The first two years have shown real limits with scoring in isolation. None of this comes in the form of a gigantic red flag or a blaring alarm, but it’s stuff we’ll need to see Kristaps iron out sooner rather than later.
Porzingis actually declined as an isolation scorer from his rookie to sophomore season. In isolation as a rookie, he scored 76.5 points per 100 possessions. He created 74.7 points per 100 possessions when factoring in passes he made to teammates out of isolation. Both of those numbers rate poorly. He also didn’t get asked to score in isolation all that much. In his sophomore season, those numbers declined to 69.8 points per 100 possessions and 73.8 points per 100 possessions, respectively. His passing out of a swarming defense improved, but his scoring suffered.
There are a few reasons he struggles so much in isolation. It looks like he knows the type of shot he needs to make. It just doesn’t look like he knows how to create that shot:
Porzingis doesn’t create space against smaller defenders and he takes a lot of no-rhythm jumpers like he’s Klay Thompson. Shooters can get away with that when they’re the second greatest 3-point shooter of all-time. Porzingis is not that, which is fine. In his first two seasons, Kristaps has isolated between 6.5 and 8.5 percent of his possessions. At most, you’ll probably see that sneak up to the 14-15 percent range as we’ve seen in recent years from Chris Bosh and Zach Randolph.
It isn’t a huge part of big men’s games, but he’ll be called on to get buckets this way. He can and needs to convert with his skill set.
UTILIZE THE POST LIKE DIRK
The other area he struggles is as a post scorer. While some may immediately assume this is due to a lack of strength, I think it has a lot more to do with not understanding how to create shots yet. He takes tough angles on bank shots and doesn’t seem to elevate enough for the jumper after good moves. A lot of his shots from the post miss short, especially when his footwork is all over the place. Part of it also comes from moving toward help defenders and rushing into off-balance shots to avoid that help:
This will be an unfair comparison, but watch the difference between his post scoring last season and the type of stuff we saw from Dirk Nowitzki in 2010-11. Granted, Dirk was 13 years deep into a Hall of Fame career and had cracked 20,000 career points. Porzingis, if he can get to that point, still remains a decade away from that kind of ability and understanding. The reason I compare the two: Porzingis is trying to create shots in a way similar to Dirk.
Considering we saw Dirk and Kristaps working together this summer, it’s not crazy to think we’ll see more attempts at replication. But watch how Dirk worked during the year of his championship run. If anything, this is just an excuse to watch some prime Nowitzki highlights:
Every shot Nowitzki took came with great balance. The shot release hit the same height and mechanics no matter what. He set up his defender perfectly and executed. We obviously haven’t seen that from the 22-year-old Latvian, but he has the tools to find his way into similar, better attempts. Porzingis scored roughly 82 points per 100 possessions out of the post in his first two seasons. Only Nikola Vucevic and Andre Drummond scored less efficiently last season than Porzingis.
FINDING SUCCESS FOR PORZINGIS
HE SHOWS PROMISE CREATING OFF THE DRIBBLE
Despite a couple examples above of Porzingis settling for pull-up jumpers too often, he does do a good job of converting those. Synergy Sports clocks Porzingis in at 47.2 percent on jumpers off the dribble, generating 100 points per 100 possessions. That puts him 14th in the NBA among higher volume shooters off the dribble (minimum 140 possessions). This is typically where Porzingis shows his best execution of his shooting mechanics. He moves downhill toward the basket, either off the catch or coming around screens. He finds a rhythm to the shot much better than a lot of the random dribbling in place before pulling the trigger.
While the Dirk comparison above was highly optimistic, some of the similarities in release point and balance within the shot happen on these jumpers off the dribble moving toward the hoop. Some of these shots classify as basic moments in basketball. Others look like superstar shots he can really hone into a consistent weapon:
All the fundamentals exist here. His body squares up to the basket when he’s rising to fire. The jumper comes off smooth without a hitch and his balance remains throughout the entire process. You don’t need to give him the ball to clear out. The Knicks can use him a lot like most teams would use a sweet-shooting small forward coming off screens. Not everything has to be a 3-pointer, but everything should have him moving toward the hoop so he can control his momentum. When he goes to side-to-side, things start to tilt too much.
Without having to run the Triangle, Hornacek can design a lot of sets to utilize this skill of Porzingis.
PUT HIM IN THE PICK-AND-ROLL
The Knicks don’t have amazing pick-and-roll initiator options just yet. Jarrett Jack and Ramon Sessions can act as fine backup options. Courtney Lee had a decent chemistry with Porzingis in the pick-and-roll last season. The key is getting Frank Ntilikina to be that guy. While he’s shown a great ability to shoot the ball and create scoring opportunities for himself overseas, his PnR expertise has been lacking. Not a lot of NBA point guards peak at 19 before they’ve played a game, so Ntilikina has plenty of time to develop this as a weapon.
The good news for the French point guard is he has a fantastic pick option with Porzingis on his side. Kristaps, while playing in a b*stardized, shunned version of the Triangle, still showed a lot in pick-and-roll situations. The big reason why: being able to score in three ways out of the PnR. He excels going to the basket, popping to the 3-point line, and finding those in-between spaces for mid-range jumpers:
The side PnR situations buried his 3-point percentage. Either working the left or right side of the court as the picker, Porzingis knocked down just 20 percent of his 3-point attempts popping out. Throw him in a high PnR at the top and he hit 39.6 percent of his 3-point attempts. The number of attempts should increase this season, creating a lot of space for the rest of the attack. Once the roll to the basket opens up even more, he draws a foul about 20 percent of the time and finishes 71 percent of the time.
Of 22 players with at least 190 possessions in the PnR, Porzingis finished 10th in the NBA at 105.2 points per 100 possessions.
The Knicks will be bad this season. They should want to be bad this season because they could use another high draft pick — especially if Ntilikina turns out to be their point guard of the future. Everything for them should be about maximizing the development of Porzingis, first and foremost. He is their future and their present. He can help them forget their past. After a weird start to his career, his next goal should be just as odd to us — make the Knicks a good thing in the East.
Link:
Knicks Belong To Kristaps Porzingis Now As He Dives Into 3rd Year
lets go
