2021-22 Knicks Season Preview: Kevin Knox
In the final year of his rookie contract, Kevin Knox will likely struggle to find playing time this season for the Knicks. Could this be his last year in orange and blue?
In Super Bowl XXV, the Buffalo Bills were 7-point favorites to defeat the New York Giants. But their kicker, Scott Norwood, missed a field goal in the dying seconds and the Bills lost, 20-19. Still, the future looked bright: they’d gone 13-3 that season and won their first two playoff games by a combined score of 95-37. Progress trending ever upward is an embarrassingly common American delusion. Buy stocks, retire rich. Win now, your kids win later. Lose the Super Bowl, come back and win it all next year. The Bills did make back. In fact, they made it back the next three years, losing 37-24, 52-17, and 31-13. Sometimes your first stab at something is as good as it gets, and after is just the long fall down. See: Kevin Knox II.
In Knox’s rookie season, he averaged just under 13 a game in just under 29 minutes per, leading the Knicks in both categories as well as 3-point attempts (among Knicks who spent the whole year with the team). He was the third project the Knicks drafted in four years, after Kristaps Porziņģis in 2015 and Frank Ntilikina two years later. Knox was the project that never really made sense — if player development were a superhero movie, KP is some miracle creation, Ntilikina’s a very specific superpower and Knox is the forgotten, abandoned failure that the brilliant but disgruntled ex-employee steals and turns into an instrument of crime and vengeance. If only that were the case.
After a rookie season where Knox was second runner-up to receive All-Rookie honors, the Knicks were rumored to be Kevin Durant’s next stop. KD plays the same position as Knox, but hey, no one can really complain about losing their job to one of the greatest ever to play the game. Then the Knicks weren’t KD’s next stop and there was money to spend and a roster to build. Hello, Julius Randle, Marcus Morris, and Bobby Portis,. Goodbye, meaningful Knox minutes — he dropped from first on the team his first year to eighth in year two and 12th last year. Normally that’s a bad job by the organization. Why use a lottery pick on a project and almost immediately bury him beneath superior vets?
Knox, to me, has never made sense with the Knicks. Porziņģis was open about preferring to play the 4 spot rather than center. That meant Knox’s only position in New York would be the 3, which he’s not quick enough for on either end: he can’t stop quick opponents and doesn’t possess the handle, strength, or post-up game to take advantage of smaller defenders. He wasn’t nearly as good as Morris. He’s blocked at the 4 spot now by Randle. David Fizdale, Mike Miller, and Tom Thibodeau differ in many ways, yet none of them saw fit to play Knox more. In what very well may be his last year as a Knick, Knox doesn’t appear any more likely to play a major role than he did last year.
At least four Knick forwards are ahead of him on the depth chart: Randle, Evan Fournier (who’s played the 3 more than any other position three of the past four seasons), Alec Burks (73% of his minutes last year came at the 3) and Obi Toppin (who showed growth as Randle’s backup 4 in the playoffs). Add guards and bigs guaranteed to play a bigger role than Knox — Kemba Walker, RJ Barrett, Derrick Rose, Immanuel Quickley, Mitchell Robinson, Nerlens Noel and Taj Gibson — and that leaves Knox, at best, as the 12th man. And that’s without taking Miles McBride, Quentin Grimes, and anyone else into account.
Thibodeau’s history does not suggest a happy ending for Knox in New York. In his prior coaching stops, Chicago and Minnesota, only three players saw significant upticks in their second-year minutes: in 2012-13, C.J. Watson and John Lucas III saw their minutes per game rise by 500% and 200%, respectively; in 2017-18, Tyus Jones’ playing time rose 38%. That’s it. Those are the only players Thibs ever gave significantly more playing time to in his second year with them.
Leon Rose has no obligation to Knox, who was drafted before the current front office was in place, though Scott Perry was the general manager who drafted Knox — a Kentucky product, for whatever that’s worth. He makes just under $6 million this season and seems unlikely to find his way to more playing time or a fifth year with the Knicks. Maybe he works out as trade ballast or a reclamation project with a new team. Knox did make 52% of his corner 3-pointers last season. How good can he be? Not sure. Can you find out with him buried beneath a dozen better players? Never.
Since Knox, the Knicks have used their first-round picks on players who project less as projects and more as higher-floor sure things: Barrett, Toppin, and Grimes. If that philosophical shift leads them to a deeper roster and a brighter future, Knox will have paid off after all. If not, keep in mind the Bills only needed 30 years after their Super Bowl run to return to glory. Maybe someday around 2048, Kevin Knox III will lead the Knicks to the Canyon of Heroes. If he does, Knox the second will have been well worth it.
