2021-22 Knicks Season Preview: Obi Toppin
Obi Toppin came in expected to make an instant impact thanks to his advanced age, but hit the brick wall that is the NBA in his rookie season and took a slow, steady climb throughout to end the season strong. Can he continue the climb as a sophomore?
Arrival to the speed of the NBA game, with all its teeth and claws, is often a totalist bzzzxt! for rookies. Most don’t survive the raw power of the best defense they’ve ever faced, the deadly voltage on offense. Not to mention fanaticism on a whole new level, with sprawling aquacultures centered around every minute aspect of your job. This is then topped with a dizzying travel schedule that could break anyone’s spirit if they aren’t fanatical about the work. Maybe next year. Maybe never. Welcome to the NBA, rookie.
It’s probably fine at first. Your team slowly introduces you to this treacherous new world. Eventually you’ll square up against a bonafide superstar that very first time. It must feel like trying to conduct an orchestra that has 23 bars of rest, before having to nail a soul-collapsing two-hundred-and-fifty-sixth note right as the shot clock expires. It’s the type of sheet music you just won’t find in the box score and couldn’t play it if you tried.
Obi Toppin’s boney knees pronked across Madison Square Garden last season, already too far gone on arrival. The Bushwick buzzard, who, at 22, was the first lottery pick to be staring down the barrel of retirement. Unsurprisingly, the Andre Ingram of it all was overblown and preposterous. By year’s end, Obi looked more comfortable on the floor than basically any other Knick, as Atlanta applied the finishing touches to New York’s season.
And he wasn’t supposed to be here! A late growth spurt thrust this kid into the mix of potential lottery pick very suddenly. He’s gone from just some high school kid, to scrambling his way into a prep school, to getting a full ride at a mid major college, to seriously dunking his way into the NBA’s shark-infested plunge pool. Confident in his capabilities and cognizant of just how tenuous it all is. The arch of his past two-and-a-half years was cartoonishly high and here he is, able to leap over it all and splash into the deep end, where Tom Thibodeau asked him to slooooow down, partner!
From diving and dunking to shooting and pursuiting, Obi’s role shifted dramatically on the big stage. After flushing 190 dunks in 64 games (.102 dunks per minute) and playing fast at Dayton, Obi had a less jaw-dropping 38 in 62 games (.055 DPM) as a rookie in easily the NBA’s slowest-paced offense (96.32). Obviously the raw dunk readout makes it smell a little funky, but he was in the back of the fridge most nights. Waiting for that random stir fry when he could really get a good sizzle going. But with Julius Randle blossoming into an 38-minute-per-game All-NBA player, the shelves got pretty crowded.
Just the same, a shift in focus for Obi as a supplementary forward was to up his 3-point rate, and to do a better job sticking with the scheme on defense. In college he was used in pick-and-pops all the time, but he was allowed to be a decision maker from the top of the key and in. Plus he got post-ups and high-lows. Now in the league he had to shoot it or get it to the second side with gusto.
In an effort to keep it simple, it really felt like Toppin was tasked very strictly with just getting the timing down and learning to get his feet right. Still empowered to use his instincts to back cut any spazzoids, Obi was never really used for his creation skills even though his passing acumen is the genuine article. That will certainly be explored when the time comes. Yet, as it stands, Obi appears to be at some ambrosial nexus of Derrick Jones Jr. and Pascal Siakam. Which is to say: a very high and precarious ledge. Hell of view, though.
In the big leagues he has some nice tools but he’s a relatively defense-free bounce machine that can throw a couple deep darts every now and again — but what opposing defense is really checking in consistently with this gunk?
Pity.
With an uptick in efficiency from three, offensively he’d looked pretty damn good. And, in all honesty, he was pretty good right up to the last drop of the playoffs. But can you imagine him having to stick a perimeter player with any craft or speed? Even though Obi might be able to dot the perimeter, post a mismatch, pass out of a double team, and lift up over the top of anyone in the league, he’s not dependably a wing if he can’t truly shoot the thing from somewhere.
Strange season that was, however, and this year Obi got his first taste of Summer League. Now he’s exiting his first full training camp. The only competition he really seemed to be facing this summer was the personal pressure to get better. A courageous stallion rumbling through rugged terrain, avoiding venomous snakes and falling rocks with deft passes and mystic trickery, finishing through contact and attacking closeouts while adding springy wing things to his game.
Taking nearly six threes per game in his 35 summer minutes, that was a welcome bump up from the 4.5 per 36 as a rookie. Small sample size aside, the jump in percentage was also of note (.343 in SL vs. .306 last season). It’s a C♭, but a note just the same. Now, this doesn’t make him good, but the concerted effort has to come out of a place of Obi not reliably being a big that can protect the rim while warding off penetrators. Meaning: he’ll need to be proficient from the outside-in, if he has to share the floor with a big that can be the last line of defense, per Thibs’ requirements.
Maybe the Knicks can get Obi playing fast, and the pistols can be drawn with the speed and alacrity their new high-powered backcourt can provide. Allowing their bench unit plenty of room to break games open in a moment’s notice rather than desperately clawing their way back in. Certainly there are ways to open up moments.
Given the depth out to the 12th man, this season probably portends to be a boring one from Toppin, even if he is able to press his way into a few more minutes on a night-to-night basis. When you zoom out, though, he’s just a lowly sophomore that will need to slump his way into better rotations and adjust his glasses so he can start reading the game a little quicker.
The amount of rotational hurdles Toppin has to bounce over before he can make a big time lottery return is massive. It bodes well for the team as a whole, though. So why cry? When the worst player getting regular minutes on your team is [checks forecast] Nerlens with a chance of Toppin, you might have a good problem. Just sit in the roux and let the flavor build, young fella.
It may be as simple as learning how to open his stance and track pick-and-roll ball handlers with two fewer steps. He can probably do that from the video room in all honesty. No more lunging out, two feet square to the man, stuck in mud. Less defensive dereliction in his limited minutes would be a huge boon for the small gains, because it’s that type of boring stuff that gets him an extra four minutes every few games. Chisel at the rock solid Taj Gibson minutes. Grab a hold of some of the minutes Noel might drop in the midst of traffic. Maybe he can give Julius a few extra moments of rest. Whatever he does, the defensive end is where he can thumb the Thibodeau scale. It’s just too hard to project him taking a real leap in rim protection the way he gets attacked in drop coverage. And he doesn’t have the extra step cutting across the lane and finishing with flips and scoops.
Last season Obi did take strides on the jump shot, organizing his feet a little earlier on the catch and lowering the degree of the arch on his shot. Now he also seems to be turning his hip into it a little more and that should be the small adjustment toward the big gain. Get those shooting percentages to the median and he may need to be in the lineup more regularly based on his gravity as a play finisher and ball mover. It’s an unassuming measure of growth but it in essence is what can take him from being a a guy who uses salt and pepper to a guy who can throw together a decent dry rub. Only question is whether or not he can get it in the smoker, because these Knicks are gonna be good.
