Youth Development vs. Veteran Influence: The New York Knicks Dilemma

The #KnicksTank contingent might prefer that the New York Knicks #FreeWilly regardless of how many times Willy Hernangomez fails on defense. They ask for rookie Damyean Dotson to replace Courtney Lee and 19-year-old Frank Ntilikina to start over Jarrett Jack.

And sure, they have a point. While the Knicks build around a 22-year-old unicorn, development of his young teammates is essential for New York's future.

But there are a few things the Tankers don't fully appreciate. There is no guarantee Kristaps Porzingis will be part of the future. And sustained losing takes a toll on the players who do the losing.

Right now, the minutes are split just about in half between youth and vets: 49.8 percent of the total minutes played are by players above age 25.  

Is that the right balance? What can the Knicks learn from the triumphs and foibles of other teams? How do they prioritize? And how are head coach Jeff Hornacek and the crew doing so far?

Here's a breakdown.   

Start with Porzingis

When you have a beautiful magical unicorn of your own, you'd better take good care of it. Otherwise, it might lose its magic or run away.

In other words, the Knicks need to take good care of Kristaps Porzingis, so when he becomes a restricted free agent after next season, he is healthy, growing as a player and wants nothing more than to sign a long-term contract with New York. 

The decisions the coaching staff make about who gets what minutes have to start with what's best for KP. Who makes him better, helps him out of double-teams, feeds him the perfect passes, draws defenders off him, provides help D, gives him the right moral support when he needs a boost? Who picks up the slack on the scoreboard when he needs rest?

Who, in short, helps Kristaps Porzingis win basketball games? To answer that question, you need to try to win...which is exactly what some fans don't want.

Some fans just want a lottery draft pick. But let's take a look a closer look at a team that's done that. 

'The Process' Isn't Proven

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For the moment, Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons look like gods and the Philadelphia 76ers are the most exciting team in the league. But let's dial it back a minute.

There have been casualties of "The Process." 

The Sixers' 2013 No. 11 pick, Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams, is barely in the rotation on his fourth team in five seasons. 2013 No. 6 pick Nerlens Noel begged for a trade, began this season as starting center for the Dallas Mavericks, moved to the bench and hasn't played the past three games. 2015 No. 3 pick Jahlil Okafor is still a Sixer, but "is not in the rotation," in the words of his own head coach (playing only twice this season).

An unlikely protector has thus far insulated Embiid (2014, No. 3) and Simmons (2016, No. 1) from such treatment: injury.

Embiid and Simmons didn't have to lose, because they didn't have to play. They didn't have to worry about getting hurt, because they already were hurt. While Joel Embiid was drinking Shirley Temples, sliding into famous women's DMs and putting his feet up, Noel and Okafor had to deal with the pressure of losing, boos, fatigue, public scrutiny and the threat that Embiid would just take their job when he got well.  

Now healthy, Embiid and Simmons are lighting up the court in outrageous, stunning, thrilling fashion, and if 2017 No. 1 pick Markelle Fultz's injury also turns out to be beneficial, The Process might indeed be a stroke of genius.

That said, six weeks into Embiid's fourth season, the Sixers' four lottery picks on the roster have collectively produced 40 wins and 93 losses. Yes, they have a 12-8 start to 2017-18, but it's still a little early to declare Philly the NBA champions.

Losing just to maybe get a lottery pick who might just turn into a useful player around the time that KP's contract runs out is a risky proposition when you consider what happened to Noel while he waited for The Process to start working for him. 

Emulate Proven Winners Instead

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As another comparison, consider the Golden State Warriors. 

The core players for the past several years—Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green—were all drafted by the Warriors. None were the product of ping pong balls: Curry was pick No. 7, Thompson No. 11, Green No. 35. The trio first got together in 2012-13; as well as five other players who would be on the 2014-15 championship team, including starters Harrison Barnes and Andrew Bogut.

At that time, 46.3 percent of the total minutes played by the Golden State Warriors were by men above age 25. It's not far off the 49.8 percent the elderly 26-and-above Knicks are getting. Green was averaging 13.4 minutes off the bench; not drastically better than Hernangomez's 10.5 as a sophomore. 

So, in 2012-13, the Warriors were developing young players, were trying to win, had no intention of losing to add a new No. 1 pick (their 2013 selection was top-seven protected) and won a championship two years later. If the Knicks are doing something similar, there's reason to think it's not ludicrous. 

Win and Make Players Earn Minutes

If the objective then is to win, then players earn minutes not by their age or the size of their contract, but by how the team performs when they're on the court (and by extension, how Porzingis performs when they're on the court). So far, that is precisely the metric Jeff Hornacek has been using to reward minutes. 

On the side of veterans, Courtney Lee may be too old to be part of the long-term plan, but he is averaging career bests in rebounds, assists, steals and three-point field-goal percentage, not to mention the highest points per game since his 2009-10 season. He is also the first to point out to teammates when they've missed their defensive assignments (a job that ran him ragged in the Knicks' loss to Houston). 

Lee has surely earned minutes ahead of rookie Damyean Dotson; and Dotson can learn plenty about hustle, competitive spirit, cutting, help defense and a sweet three-pointer by watching Lee from the sidelines. 

34-year-old Jarrett Jack's influence was obvious as soon as he took over for Ramon Sessions as starting point guard and spurred the Knicks onto smooth wins. (Steph Curry's first winning season also, interestingly enough, coincided with Jarrett Jack's one season with the Warriors.) While rookie point guard Frank Ntilikina has been playing big minutes in the fourth quarter, and 19.1 per game overall, he doesn't need to be the starter. Jack's leadership, experience and skill make him the better choice much of the time, and under his tutelage, Ntilikina is growing into a true NBA player.

On the flip side, when a 12-game suspension kept Joakim Noah out of the running for starting center, we assumed it would be a coin flip between 23-year-old Willy Hernangomez and 27-year-old Kyle O'Quinn. Nobody anticipated 25-year-old Enes Kanter would sweep in and handily take the job for himself.

Yet Kanter has been the right decision. O'Quinn has been the go-to backup, and neither has made enough mistakes to merit a swap for Willy or Joakim Noah, who is now off suspension but still trying to find ways to be avoid DNPs. 

Develop Youth in Other Ways

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Minutes in the fourth quarter and starting lineup are not the only things available to develop players. Second-round or undrafted rookies, such as Dotson, and sophomores, such as Hernangomez and Ron Baker, come into the league expecting that they'll climb a lot of the learning curve during practice, garbage time and the G-League.

And when these young players do get game time, mixing them in with veterans yields better results. Throw a rookie into the deep end, before he knows how to swim, and he might sink. Throw him into the deep end with some veterans to be his water wings, and he might stay afloat long enough to learn how to swim on his own. 

The combination of playing time and mentorship seems to be working for the development of Frank Ntilikina. He and Kristaps Porzingis are becoming one of the most effective duos, with a plus-minus of plus-3.6; equal to that of John Wall and Marcin Gortat. (Embiid and Simmons still have the jump on them with a plus-5.0.)  

Avoid a Losing Culture

After a win, all the pain, exhaustion and frustration temporarily evaporates. After a loss, a player has to return to the locker room sore, sweaty and breathless, answer reporters' questions, lie to them about what went wrong, paint a rosy picture about the injury that happened, try to ignore growing resentments toward teammates, try to ignore the badgering on social media, try to sleep on an airplane, get up in a new city and try to shrug it off. 

When the losses pile up, they get harder to shrug off. When the losses pile up, you start expecting to lose. When you expect to lose, it becomes impossible to win. 

Losing takes a toll on players. Kristaps Porzingis has already endured two losing seasons in a Knicks uniform; games that put him at risk of injury and then ended in heartache. How many losses does it take to break a unicorn? Do you really want to find out?

The 2017-18 Knicks squad put together a 28-0 run in the win over the Toronto Raptors. They soundly beat the Miami Heat even after Porzingis sprained his ankle moments into the first quarter. They're a team of backward bounce passes, coast-to-coast buckets, loose-ball wrestling matches, chest bumps and exuberant sideline celebrations. 

They're terrible on the road.

But they're onto something. However they can keep it rolling, whether it's more of the enigmatic 28-year-old Michael Beasley or the return of young Ron Burgundy Baker, they should.