3toheadmelo wrote:HarthorneWingo wrote:3toheadmelo wrote:Frank had an opportunity to keep the starting job but he lost it to Payton. That’s on him. He should’ve capitalized on that opportunity but he failed. DSJ also should’ve won the starting job as well but he failed too. I am afraid the ship has sailed for both of them. Knicks seem locked in to take a point guard no matter where they land in the draft.
You act that Frank’s done developing. He clearly isn’t. Losing the job to Payton means nothing since Miller decided to play the vets. But that would’ve changed had the season continued especially given Frank’s improving play and increased confidence.
The dude averaged 6.3 ppg 3.0 assists on poor efficiency. I am not sure why you are putting high expectations on Frank like he is about to breakout and be a top guard in the league. He is about to enter his 4th year in the league and has shown minimal growth since his rookie year.
Frank isn’t done developing. He’s getting better. But it’s clear that he’s a bench player and nothing more than that.
https://www.si.com/nba/knicks/news/knicks-should-extend-frank-ntilikina
When trying to set a market for what Ntilikina could get on an extension, it's important to try to find some players that profile similarly to him statistically, as well as ones that clearly hadn't reached anything close to their full potential by the end of the third season of their rookie contract. With that in mind, three players that signed rookie extensions in the last few years come to mind: Dante Exum, Justise Winslow and Marcus Smart.
All three were similar to Ntilikina in many ways (and in some ways, still are): great NBA bodies, unclear ideal roles, good-to-great defenders, and occasional flashes of sheer brilliance that were enough to make people salivate at their potential.
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Winslow, similarly [to Exum], has had his issues staying on the court. He set his high-water mark for games played his rookie year with 78, and since then has played 18, 68 and 66 games before only playing 11 this season. Still, though, Winslow was seemingly unlocked in his fourth season after he signed his three-year, $39 million extension (with a team option on the third year) when Spoelstra moved him to point guard, proving the Heat right for believing in him. Now his next time suiting up will be for the Grizzlies, who might get to reap the rewards of a young, efficient point forward on a value contract.
Smart, though, provides perhaps the best template for how Ntilikina's career could go with the Knicks. Smart, like Ntilikina, has lived through tons of personnel changes on the Celtics and has been their one constant. He put up similar numbers to Ntilikina in his first three seasons, albeit being trusted with a much higher minutes load, before signing a four-year, $52 million extension off of his rookie deal.
Since then, Smart has been a key piece on a number of Celtics playoff teams — not a star, by any means, but the essential perimeter defender that almost all good teams have. He's also shot 35.6% from deep on the first two years of his extension, a number that should probably be an attainable benchmark for Ntilikina in the coming seasons.
So what would be the sweet spot for a Ntilikina extension? Probably somewhere in the Exum range, but perhaps even less than that, given that he (for whatever reason) hasn't gotten the same type of hype as a prospect as some of the others on this list.
If the Knicks could sign him to something like a three-year, $24 million deal, they shouldn't let Ntilikina's agent hang up the phone. Look no further than Ntilikina's 20-point, 10-assist game the other day: this kid isn't even close to being done growing as a player, and securing him to a value contract before his shot finds some consistency will be key. The Knicks shouldn't let him play out his fourth season, show even more promise, and then have to match a large offer sheet for him next summer in restricted free agency.
