thebuzzardman wrote:Capn'O wrote:Mitch is our best player, imo, and he and RJ are two of the better young players in the league. I'm curious to see who else rises to the top as keepers this year.
Everyone likes to crap on Knox - well, at least a sizable number of posters, and he has his flaws *defense cough cough*, but I think he has a lot of positive attributes for a really young player. I mean, he played his entire first year at 19, after ONE college season.
Discounting the obvious issues on defense, his offense was not bad and I think actually pretty good for a ROOKIE. Did he get some tunnel vision? Sure. Did he miss more layups than we'd all like? Sure. Could he have shot a better percentage from outside? I suppose.
But rewatch some whole games or watch a few clips, and even at 19, Knox has quite a few things about him that say "professional scorer".
He shot coming off curls (though in Fiz's offense, not enough), he hit contested 3's, 3's off the dribble, step back 3's, mid range jumpers, drives the ball well, though obviously gets knocked off his spot a bit due to strength issues, and has the ability, since college, to hit a floater/push shot from just about anywhere from 12 feet on in - which is something some players never get, or takes a while. The form on his jumper is solid and he's not just a spot up shooter.
It's interesting how people take the talent level on the young players for granted. It's this weird draft related thing, like he they aren't superstars, they are immediately scrubs. It's weird.
Maybe he'll be a bench guy - that's up for debate, but if the Knicks got a rotational scorer - one of the first 2 guys off the bench, at 8th in the draft, that's ok.
Obviously, they need to hit it BIG on a pick at some point. Will it be RJ? Or Mitch? Or some future guy? Who knows.
I'm optimistic about Knox though. On the offensive end, at least.
Knox shot like 35% from the floor last season. On both sides of the ball he was atrocious, but in January he looked virtually unstoppable at times on that end especially on the break. I think the most promising thing with Knox offensively is that a majority of his looks come from the outside and he has pretty good fundamentals on his jump shot. That shot should eventually fall for him and he might become a very potent offensive force factoring his size as well.
The defense though doesn’t seem very fixable because it isn’t a matter of effort. I can see him shoring up issues like missing less rotations and knowing when to stay up on a player but his lateral quickness is bad and most isolation possessions on the perimeter lead to a basket by the other team because Knox is scared of getting beat to the rim. He has slow feet, but I believe he will one day be efficient enough offensively that he’ll be worth hiding on the defensive end eventually.
