Burdened with being the highest Knicks draft pick since Patrick Ewing, RJ Barrett made big strides as a shooter and a defender in his second year in the league after an up-and-down rookie year. Does his third year hold a star turn, or a continued gradual rise?

Drafted third overall in the 2019 draft, RJ Barrett is the highest pedigree prospect the Knicks have selected since Patrick Ewing in 1984. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing. His rookie season showcased some intoxicating highs, but it was buried in an avalanche of inefficiency and brick mason-caliber shooting. It was hard to figure out what to make of him as he headed into Year 2 given the organizational upheaval at both management and coaching level.

Rather than left to the whims of the “keep what you kill” mantra espoused by former head coach David Fizdale, Tom Thibodeau’s ethos of “the magic is in the work” provided a much better context for Barrett to find his footing consistently in the NBA. There wasn’t a whole lot of deviation from the game plan, but night to night the game plan stayed the same and it gave the Duke alum a clear understanding of what was asked and expected of him. Get into the paint and make the correct rim reads based on defensive pressure, hit catch-and-shoot threes, and stay disciplined defensively.

And for the most part it worked. He upped his efficiency across the board from his rookie year in field goal, effective field goal, true shooting, 3-point, and free throw percentage. Barrett was prolific as a perimeter shooter in his second season in New York, connecting on a robust 40.1% from beyond the arc, including a blistering 44.7% over his final 60 games.

It wasn’t just from the outside that Barrett showed growth, as he stepped up his efficiency around the rim as well. Barrett went from 53.4% on 5.7 FGAs in the restricted area and 27.7% on 2.2 FGAs in the paint (non-RA) as a rookie to 55.4% on 5.7 FGAs and 33.5% on 3.0 FGAs, respectively. Similarly, he shot 42.2% on 5.8 FGAs per game on 11.8 drives per game in his second year after just 37.1% on 4.9 FGAs on 9.8 drives as a rookie.

To be clear, that still isn’t good, but good can be the enemy of better, and better is of more importance for a 20-year-old. If the expectation for Barrett or any second year player is to have their games fleshed out across the board at such an early stage of their careers, only a select few players would ever hit that threshold. If RJ was already good at all the things he needs to be good at he’d be an outlier — he’d be a 20-something point per game two-way stud as a 20-year-old, special even among many eventual All-Stars or All-NBA players.

So the real question we should be asking is, “what can he get better at and how much better at it can he get?” That’s a difficult question to answer, but it’s pertinent to look at what the baseline is for him already. Averaging 17.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 3.0 assists per game for a fourth seed playoff team that was fourth in defensive rating while starting all 72 games and covering more distance than any other player in the league is a solid foundation to work from.

It is not, however, where we Knicks fans hope the ultimate destination of RJ Barrett’s career lands at. A solid two-way wing, capable of knocking down spot-up looks from the perimeter is a wonderful thing, but when you draft a player third overall that is already good at those things this early in his career you’re hoping for — nay, expecting — more.

So what do we want RJ to become? Broadly, a multiple time All-Star, but specifically what does that entail? Most importantly, his self-creation needs to improve. We know he can thrive playing off the gravity of Julius Randle, and with the additions of Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier, he’s going to have even more opportunity to work off-ball. What the added firepower those two bring to the starting lineup also provides is a better environment for RJ to start flexing his creation chops.

No longer will the opposing team’s point guard be able to ignore Elfrid Payton in the corner, nor will the opposing shooting guard know as long as they can close out to Reggie Bullock with speed he won’t be able to hurt them by putting the ball on the floor. This means defenders staying at home more, which in turn means RJ has no excuses not to seriously improve his ability to finish in the paint. And how can he do that? Fortunately, I shamelessly recruited Prez to outline that for me.

Additionally, when he drives, RJ needs to do a better job of accepting the contact and — sadly, since we live in the days of Jim Harden — sell it. For such a bruising driver, Barrett simply must get to the line with more frequency, which given his play style really wouldn’t require a significant leap. Taking away a miss or two for trips to the free throw line would do wonders for his overall productivity as a scorer.

There are leaps to be made from further out on the floor as well. The biggest hole in RJ’s game in comparison to the best wings in basketball, the level us as fans and the Knicks as an organization must be internally hoping he hits, is as a pull-up shooter. Both his percentages and volume are lacking both from beyond the arc and midrange. 

2019-20: 2.4 FGA, 27.0 FG%, 0.6 3PA, 25.0 3P%, 30.3 eFG%

2020-21: 2.7 FGA, 33.3 FG%, 0.3 3PA, 30.0 3P%, 34.9 eFG%

It’s all well and good to work on becoming a more proficient finisher inside, but in crunch time the paint is a no fly zone for players without elite burst or stop-start ability to work their way there.

If RJ is going to get to the level of the best in the business, these pull-up shooting numbers need to continue to tick upwards in volume and efficiency, particularly from distance, and particularly his volume. There are far worse shooters who take more pull-ups than him. That being said, when you watch his misses, you see him struggling at various times with ball transfer, balance, and consistency of mechanics. After all, he is new to being a sniper.

Obviously it’d be wonderful if he was already good at this, but not being so yet isn’t an indication he will never get there. Ball handling and spot-up shooting are independent skills, but need to be of requisite quality before you can cross pollinate and experiment with an uptick in proficiency as a pull-up shooter. Barrett has now hit the necessary levels in both areas to the point that we shouldn’t just hope to see that improvement, but rather expect to.

So where does that leave us with RJ Barrett? Is it time to expect him to step up to the lofty levels of NBA stardom, this year? And if not, is that because RJ is simply below the requisite standards for a player like that? Are we — a fanbase still desperate for a home-grown star, despite our recent success — still trying to wish something unlikely into existence?

Answers may vary, but it’s important to note that a failure to make such a leap at just age 21, in his third season in the league does not rule out that eventuality. The NBA is littered with All-Star and All-NBA players who didn’t come into the league on par with the prodigies and gifted few ready for the burdens of stardom within their first couple of seasons in the NBA. 

Jimmy Butler, Kyle Lowry, Jaylen Brown, Julius Randle, Kemba Walker, Kawhi Leonard, Brandon Ingram, and more. The list is exhaustively extensive. In hindsight, it’s easy to pick out why it was apparent these players were always destined to reach that level. Why they were clear outliers and late bloomers. But in the actual moment? The picture was as clear as purple haze.

The fact is, in the NBA you need to bet on outliers to win big. There’s few that are clear-cut stars from Day 1, and even among them there’s those who fail to develop and progress as it seemed they inevitably would (see: Simmons, Benjamin). 

So what makes an outlier? There’s any number of statistical thresholds and eye test indicators we can retcon to claim as dead certain giveaways of why various players were definite stars in the making before they actually became stars. I am sure we will discuss them ad nauseum this season. A lot have merit, but when you’re talking about young men in the early, developmental stages of their careers and adulthood it’s not just about tangible factors. 

For every player who made unexpected leaps to stardom, there are two more with similar latent talent who never progressed. Intangibles matter. It’s better to bet on someone who has already bucked the odds to continue to buck the odds, if you ask me. We can debate about how RJ’s skillset compares to the ghosts of wing prospects past till we’re blue in the face, but at some point you simply have to ask yourself a simple question: do you believe in this dude?

When it comes to RJ Barrett, I do. I believe in that dude, and believe that through sheer force of will and desire to maximize every bit of talent he has (and then some), that he’ll crack the glass ceiling to stardom. He’s a worker, he’s coachable, he’s professional. When Coach K asked him to shoot, shoot, and then shoot some more, that’s what he did. When Fiz told him actually, don’t shoot like that, he (sadly) did. When Thibs told him to be the best corner shooter you could be, and to never miss a rotation, and to defend Kawhi in a pinch, and to run, run, and run some more, he did. 

So will his star turn happen this season? I don’t think so, and that’s OK. What I do expect is to see him win, and to see the progression of the skills needed as a shot creator, a player capable of shouldering a larger burden as an offensive hub, that will eventually lead to him being a two-way force. 

Why?

Because I believe in that dude, in Rowan Barrett Junior. Bet against him at your own risk.