Should Knicks be concerned about RJ Barrett's Summer League play?

[WestbrookGOATed]

Ahhh. I remember people raising questions about Trae Young's horrible summer league play, calling him trash and a bust. We all know how that turned out. Relax.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

Nope, not in the least bit, he's playing off the ball a lot more which causes him to press even more when he gets it. It's going to take time for him to adjust, outside of that he's got excellent size for the 2 if that's what he plays.

On the flipside Knox looks better, but it's just summer league.

[ellobo]

Bad display of high draft picks is always a very bad sign.

But there are some exceptions too. For example, 2018 #2 pick Marvin Bagley was awful last summer, but his rookie season was good and promising.

Bagley is a good comp because not only was he bad (in SL), but the nature of his badness confirmed the concerns about him coming out of college. In Summer League, he would just go hard to his left, defenders were sitting on it and he had no counters, so he just forced up a bunch of awkward bad shots. But just because other players looked bad in Summer League but turned out to be good doesn't mean that will true for RJ.

That being said, playing badly and demonstrating all the weakness that people were already concerned about, with no positive signs of what might set apart a high draft pick from Summer League bums, is a little worrisome. Missing shots and committing turnovers is not that big of a concern, and relentlessly conscienceless chucking can be chalked up to pressing. But having such a high and loose handle, not being able to go by anyone, and looking so stiff and slow are the more serious red flags.

Trae Young missed a lot of shots, committed a lot of turnovers, and got bullied on defense, but he also beat people off the dribble and made impressive passes. He played badly and raised concerns that he might not translate, but you could still see why he was a high draft pick.

"It's just Summer League," sure. And "he just turned 19," sure. Maybe he'll be great. Maybe he's two years away from being two years away. You'd just like to see SOMETHING. If he were a 23 year-old nobody hoping for a job in Europe, and you were a scout, would he now be on your list as someone you want to see more of?

[taikibansei]

Ahhh. I remember people raising questions about Trae Young's horrible summer league play, calling him trash and a bust. We all know how that turned out. Relax.

100% this.

[Jellybeans]

Why would they?
We see everything we saw in Duke.Bad shot selections and tunnel vision.Ball just doenst fall in

[Bolts]

Everything the Knicks touch turns to poop. Why would this be any different?

[duppyy]

It doesn't look great right now but we'll see how he plays in real NBA games with the real team and getting the chemistry going.

[Duke4life831]

To me the shooting isn’t s huge deal. The turnovers are a much bigger concern. He wasn’t asked to carry the offense at Duke and looks to be having trouble doing so efficiently.

Actually high turnovers should be expected, it's not rare to see guys with high turnovers in the summer league because it's essentially a pickup game with the lack of practice time they have with each other.

Also he definitely was asked to carry the offense at Duke, way too much in my opinion. He took 5 more shots a game than anyone else on Duke, he had the highest usage percentage on the team, he scored the 2nd most points ever in a season for a Duke player. He also had the ball in his hands by far more than anyone else on the team.

There is a reason there is a big group of Duke fans including myself that aren't the biggest RJ fans and very upset with K last year. There is no reason for Zion to be only taking 13 shots a game and to basically never be used in the PnR.

One of RJ's biggest question marks is he has always been asked to be a high usage guard that runs the offense. So he has essentially no experience off the ball and no value off the ball.

[MalonesElbows]

I remember watching Trey Burke put up brick fests in his first summer league and we passed it off as him needing a system in place to excel....nope!

[og15]

To me the shooting isn’t s huge deal. The turnovers are a much bigger concern. He wasn’t asked to carry the offense at Duke and looks to be having trouble doing so efficiently.

Turnovers for younger players is usually pretty correctable though, it's generally not a bad sign if a young guy is turnover prone, especially not in summer league pick up basketball.

[King of Canada]

Go check who won summer league MVP every year. Start off with the big 2003 draft.

[Pharmcat]

Bust selection . Worst summer ever for knicks keep getting worse

[NoDopeOnSundays]

Everything the Knicks touch turns to poop. Why would this be any different?

Tell me, how are the Sonics draft picks doing this summer league?

[Duke4life831]

Bad display of high draft picks is always a very bad sign.

But there are some exceptions too. For example, 2018 #2 pick Marvin Bagley was awful last summer, but his rookie season was good and promising.

Bagley is a good comp because not only was he bad, but the nature of his badness confirmed the concerns about him coming out of college. In Summer League, he would just go hard to his left, defenders were sitting on it and he had no counters, so he just forced up a bunch of awkward bad shots.

Ya then Bagley showed that he was still only a teenager and was able to progress and ended up having a damn good rookie season and the majority of those flaws didn't really show up in the regular season.

Bagley started using his mid range jumper more which made driving easier (3pt shot became consistent the last 20+ games). He added a little fade away jumper going to his right instead of the ugly forced left hand that he kept doing in summer league.

Again just goes to show you can really take nothing from these games.

[Clyde Frazier]

Not in the slightest. This is literally what summer league is for -- acclimating to the next level before the real games begin. And I'm not especially high on the pick either. Just stupid to overreact to summer league in general, good or bad.

Anyone who is legitimately concerned is likely in the "HAHA I WAS RIGHT" camp.

[Chanel Bomber]

It's way too early to panic.

But it shows RJ isn't "ready" like he/we thought he was. He wants to be great, but he has to put in the work to improve his jumpshot and work on his burst. Knicks fans are gonna need to be very patient, because it's gonna take him a while to face the fact that he's not the Maple Mamba. He can still be a great player down the line, but that's besides the point.

I read somewhere that good SL performances are completely insignificant, but that bad SL performances are a cause for concern. I hope it's not the case for RJ and he turns it around. But again, too early to panic.

[GeorgeMarcus]

I was low on Barrett going into the draft and obviously nothing I’ve seen in SL has changed that. But yeah, it’s only 2 games.

[pcbothwel]

Not in the slightest. This is literally what summer league is for. And I'm not especially high on the pick either. Just stupid to overreact to summer league in general, good or bad.

Agreed... that said, his entire season at Duke was pretty underwhelming.
I have faith that he can turn the corner, but high usage/primary ball handlers can quickly sink in value if they aren't efficient enough for the role.
You see players like Wall and Westbrook have a tough time as they arent good off the ball and too inefficient with it.

[Duke4life831]

This is what I posted in the other RJ thread.

KAT: 12/7/2 with 3 turnovers and over 6 fouls a game on a 48 TS%

Harden: 17/4/1 with 4 turnovers on 36/07/85 shooting during his 2nd summer league.

PG13: 15/8/2 with 5 turnovers on 33/11/85 shooting

The list goes on and on of top end guys having horrible summer leagues. This means nothing.

You can add a lot more names to this list of guys that were terrible in SL and ended up being stars in this league. You also don't have to look that far back either, like many have stated here, Bagley and Young both looked horrible and both ended up having really good rookie seasons.

I'm not the biggest RJ fan, but we all have to remember this is summer league. Dumb to get too high or too low on SL performances. Remember Kevin Knox tearing it up last year, remember when Stanley Johnson looked like a beast? Ya bad or good performances really mean nothing.

[Clyde Frazier]

Not in the slightest. This is literally what summer league is for. And I'm not especially high on the pick either. Just stupid to overreact to summer league in general, good or bad.

Agreed... that said, his entire season at Duke was pretty underwhelming.
I have faith that he can turn the corner, but high usage/primary ball handlers can quickly sink in value if they aren't efficient enough for the role.
You see players like Wall and Westbrook have a tough time as they arent good off the ball and too inefficient with it.

Even with the pedestrian shooting at duke, RJ projects to be a better shooter than both of those players. Rookies typically aren't efficient either, so it will probably take until year 3 to see what he's really going to be. I do hope Fizdale doesn't push him usage wise and much as he did Knox last season. He probably won't by design just because there's more talent on the roster this year, which is a good thing. Knox hit a rookie wall mid season as a starter, and fiz didn't let go. A lower usage role likely would've resulted in better metrics and stopped the "worst player in the league" talk as opposed to a 1 and done rookie who was just asked to do too much.