The playoffs showed that the Knicks crave playmaking, creation, and point of attack defense. Could a late first round point guard give them all three?

Position: Point guard, West Virginia University

Age: 20 (9/8/2000)

Height: 6 ft 1 in (w/o shoes)

Wingspan: 6 ft 8.75 in

Weight: 195 lbs.

Strickland 2021 Big Board Rank: Unranked

The Sales Pitch: I’m not sure there’s a Thibs-ier guy in this draft than Miles McBride. McBride was a nightmare on defense for opposing ball handlers (including to ball handlers as illustrious as one Cane Cunningham) using his elite combination of length, strength, agility, and MOTOR to harass and disrupt offenses before they could even get into a rhythm. The numbers bear out McBride’s penchant for causing turnovers, as he had a steal percentage of 3.1 over his first two seasons. McBride in general is an extremely attractive prospect from an advanced stats perspective, with a BPM of 9.5, a 2.6:1 assist to turnover ratio, solid free throw rates for an undersized prospect, and terrific shooting numbers.  

And for those getting Jevon Carter vibes or who are worried that McBride’s defensive production could be a product of West Virginia’s aggressive system, he brings a hell of a lot on offense as well. Though he took 4.6 3-pointers per game as a freshman, he struggled with accuracy, shooting just 30.4% on them and a solid-but-unspectacular 74.7% from the charity stripe. Fast forward to this year, and McBride became a devastating pull-up shooter in the half court, hitting 41.4% of his threes. Only 58.7% of those threes were assisted, and game film shows very strong perimeter shot creation ability. He doesn’t need much space to get his shot off and was excellent at using ball screens and punishing defenders who went under. In addition to this, McBride improved his playmaking tremendously while avoiding turnovers, and showed the ability to capably run an offense. Lastly, though McBride notably did not generate many easy attempts at the rim on his own, he is very good at getting into the paint and drawing fouls. As we’ve seen with Immanuel Quickley, this ability to draw fouls and use space intelligently can somewhat mitigate a lack of rim pressure. This last point is particularly encouraging given McBride’s frame, as he looks to have the ability to add a substantial amount of weight without compromising his burst.

Elite Traits/Skills: Lateral quickness, defensive instincts, strength, pull-up shooting, very low turnovers relative to playmaking and shot creation

The Devil’s Advocate argument: Only 20% of McBride’s shots came at the rim, and although he has a nice frame and burst, he didn’t put a ton of pressure on the rim. He did finish 60% of his shots at the rim when he got there (per hoop-math.com), but this is less than ideal. And while McBride is a good passer, he is not quite Trae Young. This combination of underwhelming rim pressure and good-but-not-quite-great passing can lead to pessimism in his ability to be a true lead guard, and whether he is more suitable in a role as a sixth man/defensive pest. The shooting should translate, but whether he will be someone you want to consistently run your offense at the NBA level is still a question.  

The Misconceptions: While I do think McBride can improve even more in making advanced reads, the idea that he is strictly a combo guard and can’t run an offense is false. Compared to some of the other guards in his projected draft range (Tre Mann, Nah’Shon Hyland, Jared Butler) I would put him up there with Butler as a passer and more advanced at this stage (as well as better taking care of the ball) than Hyland and Mann. Even if his lack of vertical ability at the rim precludes a primary ball handler outcome, he should still be able to capably make the right reads out of pick-and-roll and leverage his combination of pull-up shooting and passing ability to run the offense for stretches, particularly against bench units.

Important Numbers:

• 9.5: His box plus minus, a terrific number. He elevates his team

• 0.338: his free throw rate, a very good number, particularly for an undersized guard who didn’t generate a ton of layups

• 20.6%: Percentage of McBride’s shots at the rim. You’d like to see this number significantly higher

• 41.4%: McBride’s 3-point percentage, a stellar number

• 6.3: McBride’s 3PA per 100 possessions. For comparison, Immanuel Quickley was at 8.6 his sophomore year

• 58.7%: Percentage of McBride’s threes that were assisted. This is rather low, indicating a high proportion of self-created threes

• 3.1%: McBride’s steal rate — this is really good

• 28.5%: McBride’s assist rate, up from 17.2% as a freshman. Significant improvement as a playmaker and point guard, though there are still improvements to be made

Knicks Fit: Very good. McBride’s length, size and defensive tenacity shouldn’t preclude him from playing with Immanuel Quickley, while his shooting ability should help alleviate spacing issues with the starters. The Knicks had plenty of issues in their playoff loss to Atlanta, but inability to stop penetration (Trae Young, obviously, but the Knicks struggled at the point of attack against Bogdan Bogdanovic, Kevin Huerter, you name it) as well as a lack of perimeter creation and 3-point shooting were issues at the top of the list.  McBride should help all three with his polish as a pick-and-roll ball handler, pull-up shooting ability, and elite point of attack defense that should translate very quickly.