The PERRIN system: Knick candidates in the 2024 NBA Draft
Prez busts out his vaunted system to point us in the direction of whom the Knicks will look to land in this week’s draft — and won’t
No picks were picked last year, when Knick brass played with fire skipping out on a second consecutive draft – though things worked out anyway. Guess what? We’re still going to do it again this year. Do what, you say? Analyze the 2024 draft class using the state-of-the-art PERRIN formula, that’s what.
Pull-up shooting skill/Power rim-runner (for bigs)
Excites Worldwide Wes
Radically good advanced stats
Really a DAWG
Immediate impact
Not a youngin
PERRIN considers common traits of past Knicks draft picks (under the direction of assistant general manager Walt Perrin) and grades current prospects accordingly. If you want to dig deep into the list of players New York’s picked or been rumored to target, check out last year’s article, which goes in-depth into those players and what they have in common – the basis for this formula. The short version: players who “score” four points or higher on this test are – theoretically – the kind of players the Knicks have preferred in the past.
Pull-up shooting: This measures whether a prospect is or isn’t a good pull-up shooter, important because the best shooters – even if they don’t shoot pull-up jumpers in the NBA – usually knock down pull-ups before they get to the NBA. They’re harder shots to shoot and make, therefore better shooters can often shoot them. The one asterisk? This category can get slightly complicated if someone is a good 2-point pull-up shooter but not a good 3-point shooter; Tristan Da Silva fits that mold in this class. The only bigs the Knicks take tend to be guys who can excel as rim runners, so for bigs, instead of pull-up shooting, we look at power rim running – new this year.
Excites Worldwide Wes: Do they come from a big NCAA program? An NBA family? Were they a McDonald's All-American, or highly ranked out of high school? Did they become a high-level NCAA award winner? The Knicks’ personal voodoo man, William Wesley, is as well-connected as anyone to big names and bright lights. They’ve yet to take a relatively unknown player since WWW’s arrival – even perceived “reaches” like Deuce McBride, Immanuel Quickley and Quentin Grimes all came from pretty major programs, and Grimes and Quickley both were 5-star recruits out of high school.
Radically good advanced stats: What that box plus/minus look like, playa? Them 3s per 100? Is that Synergy page poppin’? The Knicks have nerds on staff, and they wield immense power.
Really a DAWG: Perhaps the toughest variable to evaluate. Most of our picks have been uber-competitive defenders, physical on one if not both ends of the court. They’re also the type of players who aren’t afraid of raised stakes and clutch moments on offense, nor challenging top-level competition. For bigs, this is mostly a defensive metric. No offense-only non-star big (Enes Freedom; Montrezl Harrell; etc.) would ever count as a dawg to me.
Immediate impact: Almost every pick has been able to contribute on at least one end without being a total tirefire on the other, even as a rookie. So to be clear, even if you are an obvious positive on one end as a rookie, if you project to be horrendous on the other you won’t get a point.
Not a youngin: The Knicks have yet to draft a teenager or a freshman since RJ Barrett — and yes, I am pretending Trevor Keels didn’t happen.
The Calculation
For each category a prospect either gets +1 (they affirmatively are a good pull-up shooter; a dawg; not a teenager), 0 (not a bad pull-up shooter but not a good one; they are a teenager), or -1 (a herb instead of a dawg; a serious long-term project; no pull-up game at all). As I mentioned, players who score four or higher tend to be Knicksy – for example, here’s how Deuce, IQ, Grimes and Mitchell Robinson would have scored knowing only what we knew about them as prospects:
Ranking the 2024 class
Gold medal PERRINs
This year features only the second six-point PERRIN ever (the first was Jordan Hawkins last year) in Providence guard Devin Carter, son of NBA vet and one-time Knick Anthony Carter. Thibs would swoon over this young man.
Knicks fans would build altars, design merchandise, and change Twitter handles to pay homage within a month of his debut. He shares traits with IQ, Deuce, Grimes, and other recent Knicks Kids – a two-way force, 6-foot-3 with very long arms who rebounds like a power wing. He was a dominant scorer and newly-unleashed shooter this season. He would probably have the highest vert on our team as well. Is he a point guard? A shooting guard? The answer is yes. Like Hawkins before him, he will likely end up a late lottery pick or close.
Silver medal PERRINs
There are only two five-point PERRINs: Louisiana Tech’s under-the-radar bespectacled stud wing and long time draft Twitter favorite Isaiah Crawford, and almost-national-champion powerhouse behemoth Zach Edey.
Crawford, a fifth-year senior who won’t turn 23 until midway through next season, has had a few major injuries which sapped him of some bounce, though he still has considerable athleticism. The silver lining is because of those injuries, he has refined his shooting to where he’s now a legitimate above-average shooter with range and versatility, to complement his tenacious defense and NBA-level physicality. A two-way threat, Crawford physically resembles OG Anunoby, though with “only” a 7-foot wingspan. Why isn’t he mocked in the first round? Because of his age, and because Louisiana Tech is not a good basketball team, nor do they play many good basketball teams.
You’ve likely heard of Edey, the 7-foot-4 giant who was the best player in college this year. His ability to draw fouls, set monster screens, hit the glass and dominate in the post is without question. The predicament for GMs with Edey is whether he’ll be slow-footed on defense to the point of giving back all of his potential offensive contributions. Where you rank him depends on how highly you project his offense and whether you think he can be mobile enough to get by with the right supporting cast.
Bronze medal PERRINs
In the four-pointer group, we have a wide variety of prospects, among them three ballhandlers with insane advanced metrics: Ajay Mitchell, Tristan Newton and Tyler Kolek.
Ajay, 21, is a point guard’s point guard, with a veteran’s savvy for pace and timing and efficient from virtually everywhere. He did this despite battling lower-body injuries all year. The big question for Mitchell is how much weight teams give his incredible statistics and performances, given the schools he competed against were generally awful at basketball.
Newton, 23, was the de facto point guard for Connecticut as they demolished literally everyone in the NCAA, an absolute dawg who hits the glass like a lunatic. Questions for him revolve around if he can actually be an NBA point guard who can create advantages and run an offense, and if he’s a good shooter and not merely a shot taker.
Kolek, Marquette’s 23-year-old maestro point guard, is arguably the best pick-and-roll passer in the draft and probably one of the highest “feel” players, too, if not the highest. He frequently threads the needle for ambitious dimes. A deadeye spot-up shooter with a top-notch floater, Kolek would be different from Knicks guard picks of the past due to his weak pull-up jumper, shaky defense and mediocre athleticism. Despite those shortcomings, he’s been a winner and a dawg in college.
The Bronze group includes a few wings.
Kansas 23-year-old do-it-all Kevin McCullar was the prospect most frequently mocked to the Knicks earlier in the year due to his defensive pedigree, physical strength and vaguely Josh Hart-like tendency to do whatever is needed. Questions revolve around his janky jumpshot and whether he can return to his prior status as an elite defender if he has less offensive burden in the NBA than he did this year at Kansas, when his offense was at its best but his defense slipped slightly from its previously-elite caliber.
Another wing with buzz who made the cutoff, California transfer Jaylon Tyson, 21, was the alpha and omega of the Golden Bear’s offense due to his improved shooting, devastating handles, solid athleticism and reliable passing. Questions about his game center on whether he’s good enough on defense when he doesn’t derive value from being a 30-usage player, as he did this year in college; his point-of-attack and pick-and-roll defense in particular are abysmal, both from a technical and effort perspective. I almost docked him a point for being the opposite of a dawg on that end, but some of the moves and shots he takes on offense require such cojones that I gave him a point anyway.
The sleeper of the group is Washington State’s Jaylen Wells, whose journey to the NBA is remarkable. He played two years of D-II ball, then came to D-I Washington State. At WSU he immediately became a top scoring option and one of the best shooters in the nation. He doesn’t drive much but is plenty comfortable hitting middies and floaters if ran off the line, and is such a shooting threat he draws many fouls off of that alone. His strengths and weaknesses (athleticism; defensive events; rudimentary handle) are clear, and he’s aware of them, which is how he’s made it this far despite not being a high-flyer, elite athlete or wild ballhandler. He’s really smart on both ends.
Finally, the bronze medalists include one big with some striking resemblances to one Mitchell Robinson, another coached by former Knick coach Mike Woodson and a versatile big from Duke.
Baylor freshman center Yves Missi is built like a young Marvel character. At 19, he’s a bit raw on both ends, though the traditional run-and-jump rim-runner has enough coordination that Baylor, from time to time, let him put it on the deck for a few dribbles. He’d do a couple dribble drives, dribble handoffs, to mix things up. His wingspan is a little bit below the elite pterodactyls of the league, like Mitch, but Missi makes up for it at times with his raw athleticism.
Indiana center Kel’el Ware, coached by Woodson, is enticing as one of the longest players in the class, with real ability to do one- or two-dribble drives, hit fadeaways, spot up from three and posterize people. But his motor and feel for the game are middling, leaving him prone to underperforming at times on both ends and us questioning whether the Knicks could get him to be his best self.
Kyle Filipowski is a 7-foot five-star recruit who spent two years at Duke. He can play like a big wing and like a big; his mix of strength, finesse and touch overpowers smaller players, and he’s talented enough to out-skill bigger plodding ones. Flip is good at many things, but not particularly excellent at any one thing. Finally, there is one lingering question: can he hang with 4s on defense, given how fast and skilled the league is trending? If not, and he is a pure center, then his value probably takes a hit.
So, will we pick any of these guys?
Part of me wants to say “yes.” Many of them can absolutely help the Knicks in very limited minutes next year. Some even offer upside. It’s an odd class, and an old class. Many of the players on this list would be the oldest player the Leon Rose Knicks have picked, by a not-insignificant margin. Obi Toppin was decried as a dinosaur, and he was 22.3 years old on draft day. McCullar, Kolek and Newton are over a year older than he was as a prospect, closer in age to McBride than most young players in the league. We know the Knicks at least once targeted an older prospect in Chris Duarte (who was almost 24 at draft time), but they’ve never pulled the trigger on someone like that. So while we know they value experience, it is also possible they draw a line – an upper limit – on age, which would rule out many of these players.
On the other hand, with the Knicks firmly on the brink of contention they may care less about upside and more the mix of upside as it relates to skills. For example, Kolek is a great catch-and-shoot shooter but hasn’t quite put it together on pull-ups – maybe they see that in the near future for him, despite him being arguably behind the skill-curve for someone his age. Edey may be talented enough offensively that the Knicks feel their big-man-defensive-education program can get him to a comfortable place sooner rather than later. Jaylon Tyson playing as a secondary creator rather than a point forward might be a proposition they like. These are just a few examples; my point is even though these players are all 21+, they still have upside (and arguably solid floors).
Ian Begley reported that while the Knicks would not likely take three rookies, team brass apparently view the draft as a way to shore up depth at the very end of the bench – especially after the entire top of the rotation was decimated throughout the playoffs, resulting in 20+ minutes of Alec Burks and multiple 45+ minute games from our remaining true rotation players. For me this was good news, as I view this draft as full of NBA-ready players who can hold down situational regular-season minutes while having sneaky-but-not-star upside.
Worth remembering: New York’s roster today is very different from the one Leon inherited. The need for depth and wings may mean the front office finally pivots from spamming undersized overperformers and takes some big swings on physically toolsy prospects.
One final factor which points toward the Knicks making a pick: there are many reports that players I, Prez, personally don’t think are great are apparently destined for the lotto. This means the back end of the first round may very well be flush with real options for the Knicks. With more variability this year in terms of who gets picked when, it’s more likely a top-10 caliber prospect falls to the teens as compared to a “normal” draft with a stronger, more solid top-10. For the Knicks, who like to trade up and down the board, this is good news.
Prez’s prediction
A series of trades leaves the Knicks with one pick in the teens and one either at the end of the first round or somewhere 31-40 in the second. A whole two rookies. Boom.
