Woj: RJ Barrett, Knicks Finalizing 4-Year Rookie Extension Worth Up to $120M

[GreatWhiteStiff]

Yes, I think it does. RJ is not a consistent creator on offense, and really should never be the first or second option. If I were the Knicks coaching staff, now that we have Brunson--our best pg in years--I'd be making sure RJ works on taking (and hitting) catch-and-shoot 3s. (I.e., what the Warriors coaching staff did with Wiggins--to great result.) Just improving in this one area will help a lot.

Even last season, with him struggling across the board and our issues at the point, RJ hit 37% on C&S 3s...and the year before he was at 41%. RJ needs to continue building out his skillset the way he has been; C&S in his first offseason, his handle & ability to get to the rim last offseason, either his finishing at the rim or his off-the-bounce shooting this summer and the other next summer, then we'll start to get a better idea of what we've got in RJ.

His 3p shooting last year regressed, particularly from the corner (where he takes 25% of them). More to the point, RJ should never take another shot from between 3 feet to the 3P line again. They make up 1/3 of his shots, and he hits them at a .303 clip. No more mid-range shots, fix his corner 3, and work on C&S...and we'll have a very good player.

I don't know anything but that actually seems really horrendous if 1/3rd of his shots are 30% equity shots and go for 2 points and probably aren't a major source of foul draws. Like an outlier in terms of bad shot selection. That's kind of a good thing if he cleans that up though. I could be completely wrong and maybe its close to standard for some players though.

[The Number 9]

The Knicks finally re-signed/extended a first round pick. What has it been? Over 25 years?

It was Charlie Ward in 1999.

New FO, who did you want them to resign?
Kevin Knox
Frank Ntilikina
Porzingis
Tim Hardaway Jr.
Hell next year DAL will probably bring in Kevin Knox too. Seems like they like the NYK 1 round picks.

In this list, no one. And I did not implied they should have.
It's still something to have the first opportunity to resign a 1st round pick since 1999. 23 years !

[andyhop]

Seems like a pretty good deal for the Knicks, not a fan of RJ and doubt he will really amount to anything special but guys like him normally end up getting maxed before teams discover that the potential they have paid for is an illusion.

The fact that he actually accepted this deal makes me think less of him as most players would have more confidence in their ability

[PeteyPablo]

Maybe just a decade ago , only Superstar players were eligible for the max contract which was 5 years 100 million.

Notably Gilbert Arenas - 111 Million / 6 years

Now the salary cap makes these young men set for life as long as they don’t try to live Champaign and caviar lifestyle with Bugatti and strip club ambitions.

Congrats to this man !

[cgf]

Yes, I think it does. RJ is not a consistent creator on offense, and really should never be the first or second option. If I were the Knicks coaching staff, now that we have Brunson--our best pg in years--I'd be making sure RJ works on taking (and hitting) catch-and-shoot 3s. (I.e., what the Warriors coaching staff did with Wiggins--to great result.) Just improving in this one area will help a lot.

Even last season, with him struggling across the board and our issues at the point, RJ hit 37% on C&S 3s...and the year before he was at 41%. RJ needs to continue building out his skillset the way he has been; C&S in his first offseason, his handle & ability to get to the rim last offseason, either his finishing at the rim or his off-the-bounce shooting this summer and the other next summer, then we'll start to get a better idea of what we've got in RJ.

His 3p shooting last year regressed, particularly from the corner (where he takes 25% of them). More to the point, RJ should never take another shot from between 3 feet to the 3P line again. They make up 1/3 of his shots, and he hits them at a .303 clip. No more mid-range shots, fix his corner 3, and work on C&S...and we'll have a very good player.

Feels like you're rushing to put him in a box that he might end up in anyway, but that he could well end up outgrowing if we let him. The kid just turned 22 and has added a new element to his skillset every summer so far. So there's no need to rush to limit him. Since we're not contending for a title anyway, let's focus on the long-term development & not the short-term results.

I expected the shooting improvement we saw after year 1, but I never thought he would look as fluid with the ball as he did last season. Gone were the robotic movements that I had always associated RJ with, and in the process, he managed to get to the rim at a really special rate.

Now he still finished poorly at the rim, so that is going to have to be an area that he focuses on either this summer or next...but just like his off-the-dribble shooting, let's see what happens when he does focus on that part of his game before judging it.

[Bob Ross]

22 year old two way player who just averaged 20 ppg on a team that couldn't be constructed worse to maximize his strengths, signed to a non max deal. Pretty good

[taikibansei]

Even last season, with him struggling across the board and our issues at the point, RJ hit 37% on C&S 3s...and the year before he was at 41%. RJ needs to continue building out his skillset the way he has been; C&S in his first offseason, his handle & ability to get to the rim last offseason, either his finishing at the rim or his off-the-bounce shooting this summer and the other next summer, then we'll start to get a better idea of what we've got in RJ.

His 3p shooting last year regressed, particularly from the corner (where he takes 25% of them). More to the point, RJ should never take another shot from between 3 feet to the 3P line again. They make up 1/3 of his shots, and he hits them at a .303 clip. No more mid-range shots, fix his corner 3, and work on C&S...and we'll have a very good player.

Feels like you're rushing to put him in a box that he might end up in anyway, but that he could well end up outgrowing if we let him. The kid just turned 22 and has added a new element to his skillset every summer so far. So there's no need to rush to limit him. Since we're not contending for a title anyway, let's focus on the long-term development & not the short-term results.

I expected the shooting improvement we saw after year 1, but I never thought he would look as fluid with the ball as he did last season. Gone were the robotic movements that I had always associated RJ with, and in the process, he managed to get to the rim at a really special rate.

Now he still finished poorly at the rim, so that is going to have to be an area that he focuses on either this summer or next...but just like his off-the-dribble shooting, let's see what happens when he does focus on that part of his game before judging it.

"Judging" him? "Rushing" him? He's entering Year 4 and still shooting extremely poorly--career eFg% .472, career TS% .511--and actually regressed last year. Yeah it's time to be concerned, and of course people are going to "judge" it.

I'm advocating we do with RJ what the Warriors did so successfully with Wiggins. Yes, some players can become jack-of-all trades on offense, #1 options effective at most spots and able to create their own opportunities efficiently regardless of the defense. (Many of the players who can do this we call superstars.) In some ways, we've been asking RJ to become such a player (or at least hoping this would happen). The Twolves failed with Wiggins at least partly because they also saw such a player in him, but in trying to become many things Wiggins failed at just about all of them.

The Warriors saw this and simplified things for Wiggins, saying basically focus on C&S 3pt shots, rim attacks and becoming a defensive stopper. To his (and the Warriors) credit, Wiggins did focus on these things, and in so doing became really, really good at them--and at the same time arguably came to be worth his max salary. Advocating something similar for RJ is not "putting him in a box," it's not setting him up to fail (what we have been doing so far).

[WillyJakkz]

I believe the Knicks had no choice but to sign him to an extension whether he was "worth it" or not.

[bronxknicksfan1]

His 3p shooting last year regressed, particularly from the corner (where he takes 25% of them). More to the point, RJ should never take another shot from between 3 feet to the 3P line again. They make up 1/3 of his shots, and he hits them at a .303 clip. No more mid-range shots, fix his corner 3, and work on C&S...and we'll have a very good player.

Feels like you're rushing to put him in a box that he might end up in anyway, but that he could well end up outgrowing if we let him. The kid just turned 22 and has added a new element to his skillset every summer so far. So there's no need to rush to limit him. Since we're not contending for a title anyway, let's focus on the long-term development & not the short-term results.

I expected the shooting improvement we saw after year 1, but I never thought he would look as fluid with the ball as he did last season. Gone were the robotic movements that I had always associated RJ with, and in the process, he managed to get to the rim at a really special rate.

Now he still finished poorly at the rim, so that is going to have to be an area that he focuses on either this summer or next...but just like his off-the-dribble shooting, let's see what happens when he does focus on that part of his game before judging it.

"Judging" him? "Rushing" him? He's entering Year 4 and still shooting extremely poorly--career eFg% .472, career TS% .511--and actually regressed last year. Yeah it's time to be concerned, and of course people are going to "judge" it.

I'm advocating we do with RJ what the Warriors did so successfully with Wiggins. Yes, some players can become jack-of-all trades on offense, #1 options effective at most spots and able to create their own opportunities efficiently regardless of the defense. (Many of the players who can do this we call superstars.) In some ways, we've been asking RJ to become such a player (or at least hoping this would happen). The Twolves failed with Wiggins at least partly because they also saw such a player in him, but in trying to become many things Wiggins failed at just about all of them.

The Warriors saw this and simplified things for Wiggins, saying basically focus on C&S 3pt shots, rim attacks and becoming a defensive stopper. To his (and the Warriors) credit, Wiggins did focus on these things, and in so doing became really, really good at them--and at the same time arguably came to be worth his max salary. Advocating something similar for RJ is not "putting him in a box," it's not setting him up to fail (what we have been doing so far).

At least put some context to the stats if you’re going to use that to say he regressed. He took different types of shots as the focal point of the offense instead hoping Julius would pass him the ball with more than 4 sec on the shot clock during the 2nd half of the season when he showed what he was capable of.

This is the first time we’ve really even seen him be the first option, so we really don’t know what we have in him. But what we know is he has added to his game every year and it doesn’t look like that’s going to stop. And having an everyday starting PG that isn’t Elfrid Payton or Alec Burks could make a significant difference in his efficiency.

[Jadoogar]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/x18rbj/over_the_past_ten_seasons_only_three_players_have/

Basketball Reference has a simple stat to compare a player's TS% to league average: TS+. TS+ is calculated by dividing a player's TS% by league average TS% and multiplying by 100:

Like OPS+ on our baseball site it will be scaled so that 100 represents a league-average shooter. 125 is 25% better than average and 75 is 25% worse than average. These figures are obtained by taking the player's shooting percentage, dividing it by the league-wide shooting percentages and then multiplying it by 100. So 125 doesn't mean a player was 25 percentage points above average, but 25 percent above average.

Over the past 10 seasons, these are the only players to average 20+ PPG with a TS+ of 90 or worse:

Russell Westbrook (twice)
Julius Randle
RJ Barrett

[taikibansei]

Feels like you're rushing to put him in a box that he might end up in anyway, but that he could well end up outgrowing if we let him. The kid just turned 22 and has added a new element to his skillset every summer so far. So there's no need to rush to limit him. Since we're not contending for a title anyway, let's focus on the long-term development & not the short-term results.

I expected the shooting improvement we saw after year 1, but I never thought he would look as fluid with the ball as he did last season. Gone were the robotic movements that I had always associated RJ with, and in the process, he managed to get to the rim at a really special rate.

Now he still finished poorly at the rim, so that is going to have to be an area that he focuses on either this summer or next...but just like his off-the-dribble shooting, let's see what happens when he does focus on that part of his game before judging it.

"Judging" him? "Rushing" him? He's entering Year 4 and still shooting extremely poorly--career eFg% .472, career TS% .511--and actually regressed last year. Yeah it's time to be concerned, and of course people are going to "judge" it.

I'm advocating we do with RJ what the Warriors did so successfully with Wiggins. Yes, some players can become jack-of-all trades on offense, #1 options effective at most spots and able to create their own opportunities efficiently regardless of the defense. (Many of the players who can do this we call superstars.) In some ways, we've been asking RJ to become such a player (or at least hoping this would happen). The Twolves failed with Wiggins at least partly because they also saw such a player in him, but in trying to become many things Wiggins failed at just about all of them.

The Warriors saw this and simplified things for Wiggins, saying basically focus on C&S 3pt shots, rim attacks and becoming a defensive stopper. To his (and the Warriors) credit, Wiggins did focus on these things, and in so doing became really, really good at them--and at the same time arguably came to be worth his max salary. Advocating something similar for RJ is not "putting him in a box," it's not setting him up to fail (what we have been doing so far).

At least put some context to the stats if you’re going to use that to say he regressed. He took different types of shots as the focal point of the offense instead hoping Julius would pass him the ball with more than 4 sec on the shot clock during the 2nd half of the season when he showed what he was capable of.

This is the first time we’ve really even seen him be the first option, so we really don’t know what we have in him. But what we know is he has added to his game every year and it doesn’t look like that’s going to stop. And having an everyday starting PG that isn’t Elfrid Payton or Alec Burks could make a significant difference in his efficiency.

Fair enough, if this is how you feel. And I do agree that having a competent PG should do wonders--not just for RJ, but for Randle as well. This is one of the reasons why I've argued against doing the Mitchell trade now--I want to see what we look like with Brunson first before we try to "fix" things (and likely just mess things up further).

[cgf]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/x18rbj/over_the_past_ten_seasons_only_three_players_have/

Basketball Reference has a simple stat to compare a player's TS% to league average: TS+. TS+ is calculated by dividing a player's TS% by league average TS% and multiplying by 100:

Like OPS+ on our baseball site it will be scaled so that 100 represents a league-average shooter. 125 is 25% better than average and 75 is 25% worse than average. These figures are obtained by taking the player's shooting percentage, dividing it by the league-wide shooting percentages and then multiplying it by 100. So 125 doesn't mean a player was 25 percentage points above average, but 25 percent above average.

Over the past 10 seasons, these are the only players to average 20+ PPG with a TS+ of 90 or worse:

Russell Westbrook (twice)
Julius Randle
RJ Barrett

Yeah, not having a PG really hurt us last season...

[cgf]

His 3p shooting last year regressed, particularly from the corner (where he takes 25% of them). More to the point, RJ should never take another shot from between 3 feet to the 3P line again. They make up 1/3 of his shots, and he hits them at a .303 clip. No more mid-range shots, fix his corner 3, and work on C&S...and we'll have a very good player.

Feels like you're rushing to put him in a box that he might end up in anyway, but that he could well end up outgrowing if we let him. The kid just turned 22 and has added a new element to his skillset every summer so far. So there's no need to rush to limit him. Since we're not contending for a title anyway, let's focus on the long-term development & not the short-term results.

I expected the shooting improvement we saw after year 1, but I never thought he would look as fluid with the ball as he did last season. Gone were the robotic movements that I had always associated RJ with, and in the process, he managed to get to the rim at a really special rate.

Now he still finished poorly at the rim, so that is going to have to be an area that he focuses on either this summer or next...but just like his off-the-dribble shooting, let's see what happens when he does focus on that part of his game before judging it.

"Judging" him? "Rushing" him? He's entering Year 4 and still shooting extremely poorly--career eFg% .472, career TS% .511--and actually regressed last year. Yeah it's time to be concerned, and of course people are going to "judge" it.

I'm advocating we do with RJ what the Warriors did so successfully with Wiggins. Yes, some players can become jack-of-all trades on offense, #1 options effective at most spots and able to create their own opportunities efficiently regardless of the defense. (Many of the players who can do this we call superstars.) In some ways, we've been asking RJ to become such a player (or at least hoping this would happen). The Twolves failed with Wiggins at least partly because they also saw such a player in him, but in trying to become many things Wiggins failed at just about all of them.

The Warriors saw this and simplified things for Wiggins, saying basically focus on C&S 3pt shots, rim attacks and becoming a defensive stopper. To his (and the Warriors) credit, Wiggins did focus on these things, and in so doing became really, really good at them--and at the same time arguably came to be worth his max salary. Advocating something similar for RJ is not "putting him in a box," it's not setting him up to fail (what we have been doing so far).

I get what you're saying, but he's still just 22, has yet to have a quality starting PG in his career, and his game/skillset has shown significant progress every offseason so far. So IMO it would be limiting him in the long-run to restrict him to the kind of role that Wiggins fills for GSW at this point; especially if we stay patient on the trade front.

Not saying that RJ couldn't be successful in that role or even that he won't eventually need to fill that kind of role to be successful, just that atm he looks like he could grow into even more...especially with the vision & passing skills he has flashed, that he just doesn't yet have the gravity to utilize...so we should try to nurture all aspects of his game until he stops adding to his skillset and has to start chosing what to focus on polishing.

If his finishing and/or off-the-bounce shooting ever take the kind of steps that we've already seen from his handle, footwork, and C&S 3s, his efficiency should skyrocket and we could have a title caliber 2nd/3rd option on our hands without needing a GOAT as our #1.

[Synciere]

I believe the Knicks had no choice but to sign him to an extension whether he was "worth it" or not.

Even if you believe that it didn't have to be this year.

[WillyJakkz]

I believe the Knicks had no choice but to sign him to an extension whether he was "worth it" or not.

Even if you believe that it didn't have to be this year.

I'm ignorant of rookie scale extension, isn't it cheaper to do it now at this rate where he could've gotten more like Zion for example vs waiting til next season where if he does prove himself he gets max dollars?

[BlazersBroncos]

I dont like it. Master of none types are generally not as useful as someone who can do something well.

Like, Keldon just got 18.5M AV over 4. RJ is at 26-30M AV over the same span. Assuming RJ doesnt have a near unheard of development curve and is, at best, a #3 on a good team then its hard to explain the discrepancy. I say this as someone that thinks Keldon can be a #3 on a good team FWIW.

[Synciere]

I believe the Knicks had no choice but to sign him to an extension whether he was "worth it" or not.

Even if you believe that it didn't have to be this year.

I'm ignorant of rookie scale extension, isn't it cheaper to do it now at this rate where he could've gotten more like Zion for example vs waiting til next season where if he does prove himself he gets max dollars?

He could've gotten the max this year if the Knicks deemed him worthy. Players are extension-eligible after their third year. They are restricted free agents after their fourth years. So unless the Knicks feared another team would max RJ next year, which isn't likely, they could've waited. His price only goes up if his play goes up substantially. I would've called that one of those good problems as a Knicks fan.

[WillyJakkz]

Even if you believe that it didn't have to be this year.

I'm ignorant of rookie scale extension, isn't it cheaper to do it now at this rate where he could've gotten more like Zion for example vs waiting til next season where if he does prove himself he gets max dollars?

He could've gotten the max this year if the Knicks deemed him worthy. Players are extension-eligible after their third year. They are restricted free agents after their fourth years. So unless the Knicks feared another team would max RJ next year, which isn't likely, they could've waited. His price only goes up if his play goes up substantially. I would've called that one of those good problems as a Knicks fan.

Gotcha, thanks for the explanation! Hmmm that's a tough place to be in, they may have gotten a good deal on him if that's the case but also the variables of matching a max offer sheet if he got one or S&T if they didn't want him.

Tough call.

[jokeboy86]

I had no idea that he's the first rookie they've extended since Ward. To say the Knicks have been impatient under Dolan is an understatement.

[cgf]

I had no idea that he's the first rookie they've extended since Ward. To say the Knicks have been impatient under Dolan is an understatement.

It's why I can't fault anyone for assuming this FO will eventually get impatient like every FO we've had so far...but also why I've so much appreciated their tenure so far.