Official Frank Ntilikina Thread

[F N 11]

And if we are getting Kyrie and it comes down to keeping one of DSJ or Frank , you 100% keep Frank. I can already see the headlines if you keep DSJ in February. It starts with "DSJ thinks he's a starter in this league" then "DSJ unhappy with his current situation" then "Kyrie tells DSJ to stay his lane" then "DSJ demands trade" and so on and Knicks get forced into an unhappy player situation or bad trade.

With Frank and his mentality, for better or worse, I do not see scenarios like the above being a problem whatsoever. And you need guys like that with a potential locker room full of monster egos.

If we get Kyrie I would LOVE to see DSJ coming off the bench in full attack mode. He can still average about 25-28 minutes per game and would constantly put pressure on seconds units. This seems like a perfect role for him and I simply believe he could be very valuable in that position.

if he starts pouting like he did in Dallas, it’s not gunna work lol

He got a different attitude here. He already said bring all of em to New York.

[BKAY]

And if we are getting Kyrie and it comes down to keeping one of DSJ or Frank , you 100% keep Frank. I can already see the headlines if you keep DSJ in February. It starts with "DSJ thinks he's a starter in this league" then "DSJ unhappy with his current situation" then "Kyrie tells DSJ to stay his lane" then "DSJ demands trade" and so on and Knicks get forced into an unhappy player situation or bad trade.

With Frank and his mentality, for better or worse, I do not see scenarios like the above being a problem whatsoever. And you need guys like that with a potential locker room full of monster egos.

If we get Kyrie I would LOVE to see DSJ coming off the bench in full attack mode. He can still average about 25-28 minutes per game and would constantly put pressure on seconds units. This seems like a perfect role for him and I simply believe he could be very valuable in that position.

Yeah , sounds awesome but you really have faith its not gonna go down as Im worried it will?

[DOT]

And if we are getting Kyrie and it comes down to keeping one of DSJ or Frank , you 100% keep Frank. I can already see the headlines if you keep DSJ in February. It starts with "DSJ thinks he's a starter in this league" then "DSJ unhappy with his current situation" then "Kyrie tells DSJ to stay his lane" then "DSJ demands trade" and so on and Knicks get forced into an unhappy player situation or bad trade.

With Frank and his mentality, for better or worse, I do not see scenarios like the above being a problem whatsoever. And you need guys like that with a potential locker room full of monster egos.

If we get Kyrie I would LOVE to see DSJ coming off the bench in full attack mode. He can still average about 25-28 minutes per game and would constantly put pressure on seconds units. This seems like a perfect role for him and I simply believe he could be very valuable in that position.

Yeah , sounds awesome but you really have faith its not gonna go down as Im worried it will?

That's the risk, though.

I think it'd be different than in Dallas, cause to DSJ, Luka's just some European kid that came and took over his role as leading guy with Dallas. With us, you have to think he doesn't really have the same sense of the Knicks being "his" team, I mean I'm not him so I can't tell you his mindset because on one hand we did trade for him, but on the other we gave up our former franchise player for him. I know to us it's pretty clear it wasn't KP for DSJ, it was cap space, picks and DSJ for KP. But he might just see it as us trading KP for him.

Plus, Kyrie's a vet who's well liked and respected. Having to give up shots and minutes for him is different than for Luka to DSJ maybe.

Ideally we don't have to get rid of anyone and just hope the kids develop around KD/Kyrie, but if we do need to trade someone you have to think, is DSJ's role as a backup more important than Frank's role whatever that is, which gets murkier because Frank would be a very valuable player if he got his jumper consistent, which could take some time or just never develop. I totally understand trading Frank in this scenario even if I disagree personally, and I trust Perry's judgement on getting value back for players, so I expect to get at least a role player out of it. If we can get Mitch for Melo, imagine what we can get for Frank

[taj2133]

Frank isn't going to start over dotson unless frank improves greatly on his offensive game but that dotson job as of right now. Frank won't start over dotson if the knicks get kyrie and durant they need shooters to space the floor. If the knicks don't get number 1 pick there going to pick the next best shooting guard whether it is rj barret, culver, keldon johnson, or nick alexander walker, and i don't think frank would start over any of those guys.

[vallen]

lol Frank. People still talking about this dude ?

[Richard4444]

Frank isn't going to start over dotson unless frank improves greatly on his offensive game but that dotson job as of right now. Frank won't start over dotson if the knicks get kyrie and durant they need shooters to space the floor. If the knicks don't get number 1 pick there going to pick the next best shooting guard whether it is rj barret, culver, keldon johnson, or nick alexander walker, and i don't think frank would start over any of those guys.

We will draft BPA. If several players were in the same tier, I think we rather draft a SF/PF than a SG (last case scenario a PG or a Center). At first, we have 3 SGS in Dotson, Trier and Frank. Thats a lot.

If we dont trade for AD, I think Knox will start from the bench. We dont need a volume shooter SF with Durant and Kyle. Hunter and Cam would be a better fit as off ball shooters and better defenders than Knox. Barret appers to be a better overall volume shooter than Knox.

Anyway, I would like to bring Culver. Keldon and Nick only if we trade down.

[FKF]

A lot of the things that are criticized about his game aren't discussed on this forum as far as the specific issues on why he struggled last year.

He averaged 6.5 shots per game last year. If he hit just ONE FGA attempt more last season, his shooting averages would be around 50%.

That's the main reason why i don't put too much stock into his shooting percentages. Who cares what the shooting numbers look like if you're only taking 5-6 shots per game. Your efficiency is never going to look good if you take such a low amount of shots. I would've loved to seen what he could provide if he decided to shoot like Knox who seemingly believes he has a green light for every attempt he puts up.

He had 8 games last year where he put up 10 or more shots in a game. 4 of those games he eclipsed his career highs from his rookie year. He had 2 16 point games, a 17 point game and his career high of 18 points.

He put together those stat lines in back to back games in October and in late December. There was a big gap there in November/early December where he was accruing a bunch of DNP's for no reason.

He needs to start shooting the ball a lot more and not defer as much. I know that goes against the way he plays the game but obviously the fan base is enamored with how many points you can put up rather than playing the game the right way. It was actually refreshing to see a player trying to get his teammates involved when we had such ridiculous chuckers on this team like Trier, Burke, Hardaway Jr and Knox. I'd rather he continues to keep playing the way he does rather than turn into one of those one dimensional ballhogs.

Do you have a citation on players taking a low amount of shots= low efficiency. Trier only took a shot and half more than Frank 10% better than Frank from the field and about 12% from 3. I don't think the extra shot would all of sudden jump Frank's efficiency to where as high as Trier's. Lance Thomas took less shots and had a higher TS% than Frank.

I don't like using hypothetical's when it comes to players that don't have a history of success and Frank got worse this year in similar amount of minutes with similar usage. His ORTG and DRTG got worse from last year. So did his TRB%, defensive win shares, defensive plus minus, and TS%. He doesn't rebound only had 4 games with 5+ rebounds. Doesn't really make plays for others averaged less assist from last year too.

It's kinda strange you want him to play the same way when he's one of the worst players in the league.

Nice post and sorry in advance for my long response. First and foremost I am quite cognizant that he needs to improve in all facets of his game. Every single one of them. I'm not blind to the idea that he's still very much a project- as he was considered when we drafted him- and would require at least 4+ seasons to see the dividends pay off for drafting him so highly. What I meant in my previous post is at his core, he plays the game the right way. He makes the right reads almost always and that's on both sides of the ball. His ballhandling needs to be sharpened, his passes need to be less telegraphed and he needs to start developing a consistent 3 point shot as well as learning to finish around the rim more effectively. He needs a lot of work but the potential is there.

And I'm not going into advance metrics, I can crunch the numbers and come back to you- but yes Frank averaged a little over 2 FG completions out of 6 FGA's per game. He hits just ONE more shot and you're talking about a guy whose FG% is hovering at .500.

If Frank was hoisting up 15 FGA's like Knox does every night and still had those shooting numbers he exhibited while shooting just 6 times a game than I'd look at it from a more cumbersome light. You can't possibly criticize a 20 year old player this much for his shooting woes when he's only attempting a handful of shots per game. As I stated earlier, he only attempted double digit attempts in 8 games all of last year.

He has tons of potential and I firmly stand behind that remark. Neither coaching staff (although Hornacek proved to be better than Fizdale in how to utilize Frank,) did a good job in developing him- how are you going to take a guy who was drafted as our potential PG of the future and start him at the 3 spot? How do you allow expiring guys like Burke (early in the year) and Emmanuel Mudiay (most of the year) to start at the 1?

What did we get out of Mudiay putting up good numbers for 3 quarters most games and than go into a nosedive in production in most 4th quarters with his terrible shot selection and high turn over rate? Fizdale said he's happy to see that he helped Emmanuel increase his value now this upcoming offseason. how exactly did that benefit this franchise in the long term? This is a throwaway year, the guys who should be getting the majority of minutes are the ones who remain under contract past this season. His rotations were baffling at times, and that's putting it very nicely.

I have no idea why people want him out so badly now. We're not going to get good value trading him, we all knew he was a project that would require a lot of time to develop. It would be really refreshing to see our fanbase actually be patient with some of our lottery guys- I thought that was the whole idea of tanking- getting young guys with potential and giving them several seasons to grow together.

Great post. Thank you.

[Fat Kat]

[god shammgod]

get this motherf*cker off the bosu ball and have him put up 3s until his arm falls off.

[Dantares]

Good he is working on his leg muscles. That will help his jumpshot.

[thebuzzardman]

I'd rather see a video of a machine slapping Frank in the face 1,000 times in a row while it insults him. He needs to build up the anger.

[Jscratch1200]

Good he is working on his leg muscles. That will help his jumpshot.

It works out the core muscle group in general. Which is great. People don't realize how interconnected the core muscles are with other muscle groups.

Reading the comments on Instagram made me remember how ignorant people can be.

[malik959]

# 3 stooges gif.

[Jay10]

Pray Frank doesn't end up on the Spurs with Dejounte Murray.

[GEOLINK]

[King of Canada]

I don't know if it's a good idea for Frank to be trained by Tony from the pizza shop down the road

[GONYK]

I don't know if it's a good idea for Frank to be trained by Tony from the pizza shop down the road

That's the French national team trainer.

Gobert is the guy sitting in the corner

[King of Canada]

I don't know if it's a good idea for Frank to be trained by Tony from the pizza shop down the road

That's the French national team trainer.

Gobert is the guy sitting in the corner

I saw Gobert there, but figured the chubby guy was dropping off a pie for lunch or something

[HerSports85]

Wanted Frank to switch it up and step away from his French trainers this off season .. oh well. At least it’s not the same guy he been with last 2 years.

[thebuzzardman]

I don't know if it's a good idea for Frank to be trained by Tony from the pizza shop down the road

Free pie with every 10 clean and jerks