RJ Barrett: Where are we and where do we go?
Entering his fourth season, 2022-23 was meant to be a star-making year for RJ Barrett. But things have stalled for him. Why?
This piece would normally be Patreon-exclusive, however, it was so awesome that we decided to release it today to everyone to give you a taste of what our Spinning and Winning tier offers on Patreon. Please sign up if you’d like to keep supporting great writing (with other perks too)!
On Feb. 25, 2022, almost one year ago today, RJ Barrett returned from a 17-day hiatus for a nationally-televised game against the Miami Heat and scored 46 points on the – at the time – best team in the Eastern Conference. What made Barrett’s performance so encouraging to Knicks fans wasn’t the magnitude of the point total or the stage, but the manner in which he delivered it. This wasn’t a flurry of open threes created by a teammate; this was a superstar-level performance with Barrett getting to his spots relentlessly, carrying the Knicks offense on his back by scoring from all three levels. Barrett finished the game 6-11 from beyond the 3-point line, 7-11 inside it and a whopping 14-22 from the free throw line. After a season filled with disappointment, frustration and turmoil amidst the fanbase, finally the Knicks faithful had something to agree upon: this 21-year-old was going to be a star.
Oh, what a difference a year makes. As the Knicks head into Washington to start the closing stretch of their 2022-23 season, the vibes surrounding the team are as high as they have been in recent memory. They’re playing their best ball of the season and getting positive contributions almost across the board. Julius Randle was a deserving All-Star. Free agent acquisition Jalen Brunson should have been one as well. Quentin Grimes and Immanuel Quickley have made a definitive leap, with IQ belonging in the Sixth Man of the Year conversation. Trade deadline acquisition and Villanova alum Josh Hart has been as positive as anyone could have hoped. The center position, with Isaiah Hartenstein playing his best ball of the season and Mitchell Robinson returning, is rounding into form.
And then there’s Barrett, who is having the most disappointing season of his short NBA career. When many expected a leap, Barrett has instead regressed. Any strides or improvements his loyalists would cling to have been incremental. Were the Knicks still rebuilding, a season like this one — filled with growing pains — would have been easier to swallow. But the Knicks’ timetable has been sped up. Suddenly, the franchise that has seen just one playoff series victory since 2000 finds themselves in a position where they could realistically trade for a superstar and have enough leftover to meaningfully contend.
What does all of this mean for Barrett? Has his 2022-23 really been that bad? How did we get here? Let’s dive in.
A scattered path
On June 20th, 2019, a baby-faced Barrett sat behind a small table, donning a fresh suit and a blue Knicks cap on his head. After answering his final question he thanked the media in attendance before reflecting on the day excitedly by exclaiming, “Yo I’m a Knick!” The excitement Barrett felt was reciprocated by the Knicks’ faithful. Sure, there was lingering disappointment about missing out on Zion Williamson and Ja Morant. And while most knew it was going to be a long journey, for the first time there appeared to be light at the end of the tunnel. Knicks fans had their guy. This was his team now.
Until it wasn’t. The Knicks entered that summer with enough cap space to sign two maximum free agents. They had their sights set on Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. You know what happened. Durant and Irving opted to sign with the crosstown rival Brooklyn Nets, and the Knicks found themselves with a boatload of cap space and no backup plan. Rather than adjust course they decided to stick to a worse version of plan A – use their available cap space on free agents. In less than a month Randle, Marcus Morris, Bobby Portis and Reggie Bullock were all Knicks. If failing Barrett as an organization were a series of dominos, this spending spree was the first one to fall.
This isn’t to say that doing nothing would have been better. There is very little evidence that putting a young player on a G League-quality roster is good for development. I have no problem with the Knicks trying to field a competent team. The Knicks didn’t fail Barrett because they tried to improve their roster, they failed him because they completely disregarded the importance of synergy when constructing the roster in Barrett’s first season. Surely the team that invested its highest draft pick in 34 years in him had some feel for what kind of player he was. Barrett, who shot 30.8% from three in his lone college season, was a wing who would operate best in space with the ball in his hands. Surrounding him with an abundance of wings and bigs who both need the ball in their hands and provide little gravity was effectively malpractice.
Of course, Barrett’s trajectory was not set in stone that first offseason. After a brutal rookie season and a long offseason spent in lockdown, the Knicks, who had already traded Morris for a pick that would become Quickley, decided not to exercise their team option on Portis and, most importantly, hired Tom Thibodaeu to be their new head coach. While Thibodeau brought with him a winning pedigree and defensive acumen, his arrival also signified something else — that Barrett would have to catch up.
This was a fork-in-the-road moment for the franchise. There were plenty of coaches available who could have been brought in with the future in mind. Thibodeau was not one of those coaches. Thibodeau was brought in to build a culture and win. There would be no taking one step back to take two or three steps forward. The Knicks wanted results. And while, in a manner of speaking, they got them, nearly doubling their Vegas-projected win total, for Barrett’s individual development this was domino two.
Since Thibodeau’s hiring, Barrett has spent most of his time stuck between a rock and a hard place. A purgatory of sorts. It is obvious, even now, that Barrett fancies himself a star. He is one of the most mentally tough players I have seen in a Knicks uniform. But Thibodeau has no interest in waiting for Barrett (or anyone) to develop into a star. He requires more certainty. When Thibodeau turned to Randle to lead his team before his first season, Barrett was left as a supporting piece. Over the years, we have seen Barrett show glimpses in almost every area of the game. In his second season, he shot over 40% from three, a stark contrast to what he showed in college. And while his defense remains frustratingly mediocre, he has had stretches of brilliance, including a masterful performance against Jayson Tatum on opening night of his third season.
As the Knicks sputtered to end Barrett’s third season, he began to consistently shine. Over the final 22 games of the season, he averaged 24.5 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game and getting to the line more than eight times a game. This stretch marked the first time in Barrett’s career when it felt like sustained progress that had earned him elevated priority in the Knicks’ hierarchy. Sure, the Knicks had taken a small detour to get to the destination, but finally they had arrived at the place we thought they were less than two years prior: this was Barrett’s team. And then they signed Jalen Brunson.
Brunson’s arrival, the third and final domino, shined an enormous light on what the Knicks thought of Barrett. This was their way of saying, “if Barrett becomes a star it’s not going to be because we prioritized him.” What’s happened in the Knicks’ first 60 games has only reinforced that idea. Combining Tom Thibodeau’s largely stagnant and iso-heavy offense with Brunson and Randle transformed Barrett into almost exclusively a finisher. Barrett’s results have not been pretty.
He’s struggling to put the ball in the basket; not surprisingly, he’s also attempting a career-low as far as shots inside of five feet. To go along with that, he’s shooting 32.3% from beyond the 3-point line, almost the worst of his career. His assist percentage (AST%) is a career low, yet somehow his turnover percentage (TOV%) is relatively in line with the rest of his career. The cherry on top? His defense is as bad as it's ever been. Watch his tape and his shortcomings on that side of the ball jump off the screen for you. He is weak getting around screens, he is poor at closing out, and he is a liability on the defensive glass.
What’s terrifying is while this is not the first extended stretch in which Barrett has struggled, it is the first time his struggles are reflected in team impact data to the extent they are this season.
That’s right, Barrett is the only player in the Knicks’ rotation whose minutes they’re not winning. The difference between him playing and not playing is almost eight points per 100 possessions worse than the second-worst rotation player – and that player, Brunson, has the excuse of being backed-up by one of the best bench players in the league in Quickley. Barrett’s data is so askew it feels like it has to be an outlier. But the tape backs it up. Barrett has hurt the Knicks this season.
Looking ahead
How does Barrett salvage this season? On the whole, I’m not sure he can. Barely 25% of the season remains; it’s going to be awfully difficult to clean up his numbers. But if I were him, I would take a page out of the notebook of his longest-tenured teammate. Randle, who struggled last season (in much different ways than Barrett), is in the middle of a comeback year for the ages. Unlike 2020-2021, when he actually won Most Improved Player (MIP), what Randle has done this season has little to do with what he’s doing and everything to do with how he is doing it.
A fine midrange player over the course of his Knicks career, Randle has cut down on his attempts from that range. In his MIP Award season, 48% of Randle’s shots came in-between five feet of the rim and the 3-point line, and he made 42% of those shots. This season he’s shooting 46% on them, but only 29% of his field goal attempts (FGAs) are coming from that range. Compare that to Barrett, who, despite shooting just 35% from that in-between range attempts 27% of his FGAs from the second level. With Barrett’s ability to get to the basket, I’m not convinced he needs to settle for midrange jumpers as often as he does. Barrett’s first step in not only salvaging this season but improving as an individual is making his shot location map smarter.
The next step is to make a real commitment on the defensive end. We’ve seen it before. It’s even been coming on as of late. But Barrett needs to be consistently reliable on that end. While Grimes, who stands barely 6-foot-5, does an admirable job on that end, there are too many wings that Barrett matches up better against. Right now, the Knicks are over 11 points per 100 possessions better defensively when Barrett sits. That is unacceptable. As long as Brunson and Randle are on the Knicks, Barrett is going to be the third option offensively. I’m sure that frustrates him. But it’s on him to channel that energy into something positive. He’s talked plenty about wanting to be a two-way star like Jimmy Butler. It’s time for him to back that up. How likely is that to happen? That’s up to him. I’d bet Thibodeau has preached to him the importance of thriving in his role and embracing the ways he can provide value without dominating the ball. Despite his (very real) struggles, he has shown too many glimpses in too many different areas not to eventually put it together.
The question becomes, will that happen in New York? It appears Brunson and Randle are here for the long haul. Does their presence make Barrett, probably their best non-draft pick trade chip, expendable? If it were up to me (Frank Barrett) I would say no. It’s rarely prudent to sell low. And Barrett still has the highest ceiling on the team.
Unfortunately, it’s not up to me. And I can’t help but wonder what the climate will look like this summer without a meaningful postseason run. Will the Knicks be content with their progress and remain patient? Or will they, once again, scurry to the finish line? If Barrett continues to struggle he may force their hand. But that can’t happen until the summer. Barrett has 22 games and (hopefully) a postseason to turn things around. Let’s see what he’s got.
