Free Agent Profile: Aron Baynes
Prof. Matthew Miranda: Cashier. Fast food peon. Lawn and garden laborer. Dishwasher.
These were four of the earliest jobs I held. Not a glorious gig in the bunch. But the fanciest three-star Michelin restaurant in the world would grind to a halt without clean silverware. New York’s Botanical Garden didn’t fall from the sky all manicured and kempt. McDonald’s boasts “billions and billions served,” but not ‘cuz the CEO was salting fries and coming out of an eight-hour shift reeking of hamburger buns. And until/unless Amazon achieves its quest to become Skynet, most stores still need cashiers to keep on keeping on. Which brings us to the New York Knicks and Aron John Baynes.
The Knicks have money to spend this offseason. They also happen to have needs at virtually every single position on the roster. For real. Other than hopefully Mitchell Robinson taking over as the starting center, nothing on this team is established. RJ Barrett is still undefined enough that he could end up in any number of roles — secondary playmaker; primary scorer; big wing; undersized point forward.
Julius Randle may have a particular set of skills, skills acquired over a very long basketball career, skills that make him a nightmare in certain matchups. But he is no playmaking 4. There’s not a given at small forward. The closest thing they have to a conventional shooting guard, Damyean Dotson, appears about as rarely as the Perseids meteor shower. And as for point guards this century… the less said, the better.
So Aron Baynes as a prospective probable back-up center, while not the sexiest hole to explore (I leave that to you to define for yourselves), is worth thinking about. Why? Because he does things other Knick bigs don’t, and because there is some evidence that Baynes is one of those players whose impact on winning is tangible and greater than the sum of its parts.
Drew Steele: Hey Professor, my hand has been raised for a few paragraphs now. Can I speak?
Miranda: You will wait until you are called upon!
Where was I? This season is the third in a row where Baynes has taken more threes than the rest of his career combined. He took more threes than any Knick guard other than Barrett. No one knows what the roster will look like whenever next year starts, nor what kind of offense Tom Thibodeau wants to run. But having a center who commands respect on the perimeter opens the floor for everybody else. If the other team’s center is overly key-centric, like Hassan Whiteside in the clip below, Baynes can make them pay.
Most of Baynes’ 3s look similar to this, i.e. there’s acres of space between him and the nearest defender. Odds are somebody just dribble-penetrated and kicked it out. He will hit the occasional step-back from deep, but most of his damage from outside is straight-up latchkey kid. As in home alone.
While he’s no Nikola Jokić passing the ball, Bangers is good for five-plus dimes some nights. His assist percentage this year was better than all the Knick bigs besides Randle and Bobby Portis.
On the other end of the floor, Baynes is a presence. Only Mitch and Taj Gibson had a higher offensive rebounding rate than Baynes, and no Knick matched his success on the defensive glass. Though he may not be a big-time shot-blocker as far as the numbers go, it’s hard to factor will into an equation.
Check him here versus Kawhi Leonard, recognizing the threat nearing the rim, disrupting it, and recovering to corral the miss:
Drew: Finally, I get to speak. Aron Baynes is everything I love in a role player. Was he born in New Zealand? Yes. Does he need the ball in his hands to be a positive impact player? Nope. Does he do things like box out? Absolutely. The last time the Knicks had a player similar to Baynes was Robin Lopez (another role player I love). All successful teams have a guy like Baynes, who fulfills the good ole cliche of “he just knows how to play winning basketball.” Let’s look at some data:
Baynes averaged 22.2 minutes per game this year over 42 games. I chose to use per-36 stats just to highlight the impact Baynes makes in his role as a backup big off the bench. I also removed players who did not play at least 30 games this season, to help remove the noise of the new players who are playing in the bubble, as well as those players who appeared in just a few games.
Among that sample, Baynes ranks sixth in box outs (7.8) and eighth in team rebounds on box outs (4.3), ahead of players like our beloved Mitch and the league’s greatest triple-double threat (screen assists count, right?), Rudy Gobert. Just imagine what that type of play style can do for someone like RJ Barrett, who is a good rebounder and transition player.
One thing to keep in mind, Professor, about Baynes’ 3-point shooting: he only recently began shooting from deep. Baynes took an impressive seven total 3-point attempts during the first five years of his career. Over the past three, he’s taken 250 and is shooting 33.2%. If he duplicates his shooting over the past two years (34.9%), that would be amazing, but I don’t think we can bank on it happening. If the Knicks do sign him, I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think we can go too crazy over the 3-point shooting.
Miranda: Baynes is no Terry Mills from deep (look him up, kids), but I can’t help being intrigued by someone who’s still adding to his game this far into his career, especially someone with as few NBA miles as he has given his age. Baynes turns 34 early next season. Julius Randle is 25 and played just 14 minutes as a rookie before breaking his leg and missing the rest of the season, yet he’s logged nearly 3600 more NBA minutes than Baynes. The Australian didn’t join the NBA til he was 26, after a four-year stint at Washington State in college, an international career spent in Lithuania, Germany, Greece and Slovenia, and a few stops in the G-League. If you distill Baynes and Randle’s minutes down into minutes per season from college until present, the difference becomes even more stark: 759 minutes per season for Baynes over a 16-year career, vs. 1738 minutes per season for Randle over a seven-year career (an even more staggering 2026 minutes per season if you take away that 14-minute rookie campaign).
Baynes has had an up-and-down role this year, which could prepare him for the every-Thursday’s-a-tsunami mayhem that is life at Madison Square Garden. He was Phoenix’s starting center while Deandre Ayton was suspended 25 games at the start of the season for taking a banned diuretic. Ayton reclaimed the starting spot about two weeks after returning to action. Baynes came off the bench, then contracted COVID-19 in June. He didn’t play a single minute of the Suns’ 8-0 stint in the Orlando bubble, despite being active.
“That’s the problem that we all have right now,” Suns’ coach Monty Williams said regarding Baynes’ inability to get back into the rotation. “There’s not a lot of time for practice. We’re trying to figure out ways to get him some reps. If you can’t play five-on-five, we can’t just throw you in a game. I don’t want to put a guy out there that’s not ready.”
Still, Baynes ages like a fine Shiraz, a tone-setting, short-burst winner of a weapon. With Mitchell Robinson hopefully ascending to a bigger role, the Knicks certainly have bigger needs. But when the whole house needs renovating, you don’t turn up your nose at upgrades anywhere. I like your Robin Lopez allusion. They’re different players, but Baynes suggests something of that same quality.
Drew: Baynes and Lopez are certainly different, but they have that same je ne sais quoi about them. You need those guys at effectively any stage your franchise is in, whether you’re contending or rebuilding. He has consistently been a positive impact player on every team he’s played for. I do think there is an interesting question that will come out of this article: How does bringing in Baynes affect the big-man rotation, assuming Taj Gibson is going to be back and Julius Randle’s status is up in the air (well, “up in the air” in the context of wishful thinking amongst Knicks fans)? Let’s leave that question for a different article or the comment section to debate.
Circling back to the “impact on the court” statement... Below is one of my signature RAPM scatter plots.
Baynes’ five-year defensive RAPM is notably better than his respective offensive RAPM, however, he still isn’t taking anything away on offense — it’s still a positive figure. Barely, but positive nonetheless. Of this sample of players who have played similar total minutes over this time period, Baynes ranks fourth in RAPM. FOURTH! An interesting tidbit to take from this data is that other notable and hopeful Knicks free agent targets Fred VanVleet and Davis Bertans are in the top six. I love VanFleet, so if the Knicks signed both him and Baynes this offseason…
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I know Baynes isn’t a sexy free agent signing. He’s not someone Knicks fans who want to tank for another year think should be on the roster. With the Knicks currently slated to bring in another three rookies this draft in conjunction with their current group of young players, the organization needs to actually prioritize surrounding those young players with veterans who complement their skillsets without taking time and usage away.
Last offseason, the Knicks’ front office, well, somewhat did that with Gibson, Wayne Ellington, and Reggie Bullock. The team needs to follow that train of thought, but execute much better. Signing Baynes falls into that category. Just look at how much better the Suns played this season — especially Booker and Ayton — with the additions of Ricky Rubio and Aron Baynes. They looked much improved, with Booker taking his game to another level. Whether Baynes is interested in New York is another question, but if he is, it’s a no-brainer signing.
