Biggest Adjustments NY Knicks Must Make This Coming Season
The New York Knicks have two glaring reasons to make adjustments for the 2014-15 campaign: They are coming off a lottery finish one season after winning 54 games (and an actual playoff series); and a new regime has taken over the team.
The many faces returning to the roster must make amends for last year's dud. Add in the stewardship of new team president Phil Jackson with his hand-picked rookie head coach Derek Fisher, and a new set of challenges will confront the team as players adapt to the triangle system, or at least something like it.
Team culture and style cannot change overnight, but the first step is identifying the areas that need to be addressed. Some of the adjustments the Knicks must make include the basic fundamentals of basketball, especially on defense, while others stem from new coaching schemes and offensive distribution.
While Knicks fans have become familiar with mediocrity, the new regime will not produce immediate dividends, and the blueprint for success should be imagined as a three-year plan, not a sudden cure-all.
Play Decent Defense
The Knicks ranked 24th in the league in defensive efficiency last year, worse than the 28-win Sacramento Kings, via NBA.com. It made sense then when ESPN New York's Ian Begley wrote on Oct. 1 that the Knicks were "all about defense in the first two days of training camp."
Specifically, the loose-lipped J.R. Smith revealed Monday via Begley that "the team would try to funnel ball-handlers to the sideline instead of sending them to the middle, like they did last season." Considering the hoop is located in the middle, that makes sense.
Carmelo Anthony provided more general insight Tuesday about the defensive approach, which seems designed to address the Knicks' miscommunication and discombobulation last year. According to Anthony: "We’re trying to simplify the game. We’re trying to make it simple and easy but very detail-oriented. Those are the things we’ve been working on.”
Wednesday's training camp highlights included Melo hustling around on closeout drills.
Defense consists in effort and communication, so without the copious switching and mismatching that became hallmarks of Mike Woodson's approach, the Knicks should look lost on defense far less often this season under Fisher.
The Knicks traded away Tyson Chandler, a former Defensive Player of the Year, and replaced him in the starting lineup with Samuel Dalembert, 33, a competent defender and rebounder who averaged 20.2 minutes per game last season with the Dallas Mavericks. Dalembert's age will likely force backup center Cole Aldrich, 25, into expanded duty, and the efficacy of his defense will dictate his minutes on the floor.
That trade also brought Jose Calderon, 33, to New York, marking an overall improvement at the point guard position, although he is an nonathletic, lead-footed defender. The integration of those Mavs into the rotation of returning Knicks will be a key element to watch through the first month or two of the season, as will the defensive learning process for sophomore guard Tim Hardaway Jr.
"The Ball Can't Stop"
The scheme Fisher will operate will feature many of the hallmarks of a triangle offense. As Jackson stated in a Q&A with Steve Serby of the New York Post:
"That’s where Carmelo’s gonna move forward this year in that situation—the ball can’t stop. The ball has to continually move. It moves, or goes to the hoop on a shot or a drive or something like that. In our offense, that’s part of the process of getting players to play in that rhythm.
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In 2013-14, the Knicks ranked 28th in pace according to Basketball-Reference.com, and the offensive holdup had as much to do with isolation sets run for Carmelo Anthony as with anything else. Expect the team's possessions per game to increase slightly, but the amount of quality shots produced from those possessions should increase by percentage. Moreover, the usage will be spread over the rotation instead of orbiting around Anthony at the elbow.
Serby followed up by asking about Michael Jordan's process of adjusting to Jackson's offense, and the Zen Master was unequivocal: "Michael had to be able to share the ball, other people had to get shots, only so many shots available out there. And when someone’s taking 27 a game or something? Twenty-five a game, that’s maybe a third of the shots. That can’t happen in basketball."
After Jackson took over coaching the Chicago Bulls, the team routinely came in below the league average for pace, measured by possessions per game. They ranked 17th in pace in the 1989-90 season, Jackson's first as Chicago head coach. By the 1992-93 season, the third title in Chicago's first three-peat with Jackson and Jordan, the Bulls ranked dead last in pace, per Basketball-Reference.com.
The new Knicks offense will still be slow and methodical, except the ball will be moving the entire time instead of being stuck to the hands of the team's few scorers.
Jackson confirmed that Carmelo Anthony not only wants to share the ball, but that it was the focal point of their offseason discussions and the re-signing process: "All we talked about in our negotiation was, 'I’d like not to have to feel like I have to carry the load to score every night.' He wants some help."
In Calderon, the team added an experienced distributor at starting point guard who shot excellently from long range last season, hitting 191 three-pointers as a rate of 45 percent, fifth in the NBA. His versatility on offense will be a key scoring weapon alongside Anthony.
Hardaway showed plenty of promise as a rookie, and fellow guard Smith finished the season with his rehabbed knee at full strength, leading to a torrid April (23.4 points per game on 49.6 percent shooting and 46.3 percent on three-pointers). The weapons exist on the current roster to facilitate an offense featuring Anthony rather than leaning on him for virtually every trip down the court.
Patience
New York has long been a win-now town—a reputation burnished by George Steinbrenner's New York Yankees and two Super Bowls in five years for the New York Giants—but no one expects much from the Knicks anymore in terms of contending. That's been a pipe dream for the last decade-plus, but the tide is turning under the Jackson presidency.
He improved the point guard position through a trade and actually acquired draft picks in the process, which is a very unfamiliar strategy for the Knicks. Perhaps No. 34 selection Cleanthony Early, a small forward out of Wichita State who fell from first-round consideration, will eventually turn out to be the first blue-chip pick of Jackson's presidency.
However, Jackson has a yoke around his neck this season. Amar'e Stoudemire and Andrea Bargnani will see their contracts expire, bringing a hefty sum off the Knicks payroll in the amount of $35 million according to Spotrac. To a degree, the team and its fanbase will spend 2014-15 waiting for next year, or perhaps the year after. Jackson must bolster the roster through free agency, with Marc Gasol (2015) and Kevin Durant (2016) two attractive targets looming on the horizon.
The roster needs readjusting, and no amount of shrewd trading can dig the Knicks out of their financial hole for 2014-15. They will wing it this year and look to reload with each offseason in which cap space actually exists.
By then, Fisher will have learned the trial-and-error lessons that confront a coach in his first season. As an encouraging sign of former players-turned-head coaches, both Mark Jackson and Jason Kidd found success swiftly after taking over the clipboard. Fisher hopes to emulate that, and realistically the Knicks are set on a three- or four-year plan with the current leadership.
The centerpiece of the Knicks, 30-year-old Carmelo, confirmed that he is committed and willing to be patient, but he could not give an expiration date on either of those things. As Anthony told reporters on Monday:" My thing is I want to embrace what Phil and Derek are doing. I want them to know that I’m in. I’m embracing this challenge. ... I’m willing to be patient. Now, how long (am) I willing to be patient? I can’t tell you that. But I’m willing to be patient."
If patience is a virtue, Melo may not possess it in sufficient quantity unless he can see the long view. He needs to accept that success with the current personnel will not arrive immediately, even if necessary adjustments are made.
Building a title contender comes through a process, and embracing the current challenge before him will require an eye on the 2016 or 2017 postseason.
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