Age vs. Beauty: Why Prigioni Deserves the Nod Over Larkin in Knicks Backcourt

It seems to happen every other game, but often so quickly that the television cameras miss it.

The New York Knicks score and trot into the backcourt, except for Pablo Prigioni, who lingers. He lurks. Quietly, he stalks his man from behind. The ball is inbounded and Prigioni pounces, lunging to jar it loose and off the leg of the opponent. The ref signals: Knicks ball. It's the quintessential Prigioni play.

For two seasons, the wily Argentine veteran has been the best point guard on the Knicks. Granted, that means little on a team carrying Raymond Felton, but Prigioni earned the respect of the league as one of the best backups in the game. And yet he’s on the verge of losing his job to second-year pro Shane Larkin because of one factor: speed.

Ah, the allure of youth.

There’s no denying it: Prigioni is slow. Shane Larkin, on the other hand, is a blur. In a dead sprint, Larkin would blow Prigioni off the court.

But this isn’t track and field. Athleticism may be the most important asset in any basketball player’s arsenal, but it is far from everything.

What Prigioni lacks in explosiveness, he makes up for in virtually every other area. He’s smart. He plays hard. He’s mentally tough. He’s unselfish. He can shoot. In a sense, Prigioni is the control for athleticism in a basketball experiment: What if you created an NBA player with minimal speed, quickness and power, but gave him everything else?

Larkin, meanwhile, is endowed with pace but hasn’t grasped how to exploit it. Oftentimes Larkin flies up the court so fast he’s unable to finish at the rim or hit an open teammate for an assist. 

Contrast that with Prigioni, whose steady game is a relic from a bygone era. With his plodding pace, pasty skin and dark hair, Prigioni could easily be spliced into grainy black and white footage from the old NBA. He runs the floor like a marionette, clunky and wooden as if pulled up the court by invisible strings, and his shot is flatfooted, pushed on a beeline like a tennis ball machine tilted at the rafters.

Yet for all his mechanical movement, Prigioni is effective. His jump shot (more of a set shot, really) is among the most accurate in the NBA: only Kyle Korver—one of the best shooters of his generation—shot a better percentage from three-point territory last season.

Like an aged wine, there’s so much to appreciate in Prigioni’s game. His 3.8:1 assist-to-turnover ratio ranked third in the NBA last season and trailed only Chris Paul among point guards. He has great instincts on the pick-and-roll. He anticipates steals. He gives the “Eurofoul” (an intentional foul committed in transition to stop fast breaks). If there’s a knock on Prigioni, it’s that he’s too unselfish.

The preseason numbers attest to Prigioni’s quality. In 20 minutes per game, Prigioni averaged 5.0 points, 3.4 assists, 0.8 turnovers and 1.4 steals. He was 47.4 percent shooting and 33.3 percent from three. Larkin, in 21 minutes per game, averaged 4.3 points, 1.6 assists, 1.4 turnovers and 0.71 steals. He was 42.9 percent shooting and 22.2 percent from three.

If you put those two stat lines in a blind taste test, who would choose Larkin? The statistics don’t measure defensive prowess (apart from steals, where Prigioni doubled up Larkin), and Prigioni isn’t exactly a defensive stopper, but Larkin has struggled just as much to check quick point guards. And yet, the calls mount for Larkin.

Potential can be intoxicating. We tend to gravitate toward youth that blinds rational analysis until the warts come to light, leaving us nostalgic for the good old days.

Larkin is a decent prospect. One day he might mature into a player. Until then, the Knicks should enjoy one last glass of a vintage Prigioni while there’s still some left in the bottle.

*All statistics courtesy of NBA.com.

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