Frank Thread 3: FIBA Frank Aftermath

[god shammgod]

all this arguing over two guys who both won't be starting at point next year

[GONYK]

I feel like the most correct answer is who cares what Payton does? He's not the answer in the short or long term.

[god shammgod]

Read on Twitter

anybody with access ?

[j4remi]

Read on Twitter

anybody with access ?

I don’t normally share the whole things but this is too damned important and well written to lock behind a paywall and I’m using my phone. I may segment this later to push more heads to support the athletic...read it while you can

Spoiler:

There is a paradox with the Knicks right now. They have played their young players a lot, and yet it seems like it’s not enough. That, more than anything else, provides a source of tension about the franchise for the remainder of the season.

Consider this stat, which might surprise you: As of Monday morning, the Knicks had given about 40 percent of their minutes to players 22 years old or younger — second in the NBA behind only the Hawks, according to numbers derived by The Athletic’s Seth Partnow. New York, with its oodles of big men and fluctuating rotations, has actually devoted a significant portion of minutes to the players most in need of time and basketball nourishment.

Still, it might not be enough. Take the Pelicans — 33 percent of their roster (Zion Williamson notwithstanding because of his injury) are 22 or younger, but they had played 39.5 percent of New Orleans’ minutes as of Monday. Or Atlanta, which has used up 35.3 percent of its roster (including two-ways) on players 22 and younger, but leads the league by giving them 53.5 percent of its available playing time. The Knicks, however, have young players take up 40 percent of their roster and had them use up 40.8 percent of their playing time.

Which brings us to present day. The Knicks are 12-32 and tied for the NBA’s third-worst record. They are seven games behind the Nets for the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference and only 2.5 games better than the Warriors, who sit at the bottom of the league-wide standings. The objective for the Knicks shouldn’t be trying to notch the best lottery odds (last season should be proof that the lottery is more capricious now) or tanking (the losses are flowing in quickly enough naturally). The objective should be maximizing the rest of this season.

What’s the best way to do that? The Knicks have decided — and while interim coach Mike Miller is the one making the lineups, this is, presumably, an organization-wide decision — to lean on the veterans. In the two games since RJ Barrett was injured, New York has started Taj Gibson, Julius Randle, Marcus Morris Sr., Elfrid Payton and Reggie Bullock. All five players were brought in last summer. All are at least 25 years old and in at least their sixth season in the NBA. Only one is on a guaranteed contract for next season.

The rationale might be simple enough: These veterans can help the Knicks win more than their kids. That seems easy in a vacuum. Basketball teams should try to win games, and the Knicks especially. They stated their goal for this season before it began.

“Every night we go out there to play, we’re playing to win,” general manager Scott Perry said in September. “We’re playing to win. We’re not in the prediction business. I’m not here to predict records. But I expect us to be better, an improved basketball team. I expect the team to grow and develop and to show that and exhibit that throughout the course of the season.”

The Knicks expected to be better this year than last year, when they won just 17 games. They puffed up half their roster with veterans on, essentially, one-year deals alongside half a roster of emerging talents. The results haven’t been much different — they were 10-35 on the morning of Jan. 22 last year.

Reality hasn’t met expectations for the Knicks so far, and so they must triage the final 38 games. They can continue to try to win games even though each win might have reached a point of diminishing returns for them. The Knicks have discussed building a culture ever since Perry came aboard and joined Steve Mills in the front office. At this point it’s not clear they have. Would the surplus wins they can squeeze out of the roster playing veterans go that far to that end?

They could choose to focus on the growth and development part of Perry’s comments instead. Winning and development aren’t necessarily a zero sum game. Plenty of teams have done both. The Knicks have shown little of either.

Perhaps the trade deadline, coming on Feb. 6, will serve as an organic solution. The Knicks could offload several veterans, opening up time for the youth stuck in neutral behind them. If the Knicks deal Morris, that would create a larger opportunity for Kevin Knox. Pruning the depth chart in the front court would open up time for Mitchell Robinson.

But the Knicks might also keep the status quo. Their desire to improve this season is its own end, and keeping this roster intact might be the means necessary. Keeping veteran players around would help the Knicks’ record and become evidence of the improvement the front office spoke of before the year, but would it come with a longer-term cost?

There are coaches around the league, though, who believe playing time is necessary for growth. There is no threshold to hit to be able to say that a player is getting enough minutes. But it is worth examining how playing time has been doled out this season for the Knicks. There is a utility to keeping some of the veterans; their presence on the court could help the young players by providing a better structure for them to play in. That would also make it harder for them to play at all.

Frank Ntilikina is averaging 21.9 minutes per game this season — 0.9 more than last season. Robinson is averaging 22.7 minutes — 2.1 more than 2018-19. Knox is getting 19.3 minutes a night — 9.5 fewer minutes than as a rookie. Then there is Allonzo Trier, who has been virtually mothballed in his second season, and Damyean Dotson, the third-year wing who is playing 10.9 fewer minutes per night.

A closer inspection shows that Robinson is truly the only beneficiary of the minutes game this season. He’s averaging 24.1 minutes per game since Miller took over — 3.1 more minutes than under David Fizdale. But he shares the center position with Gibson and Bobby Portis.

Ntilikina, who found his way into the starting lineup when Payton got hurt and Dennis Smith Jr. left the team for personal reasons, is averaging 17.8 minutes since Miller took over, which coincided with Payton’s return. Since Knox played 32 minutes in a loss at Chicago Nov. 12, he is averaging 17.8 minutes per night, too.

Miller has elucidated his thoughts on how to balance winning and development.

“We’ve got a whole half a season in front of us and these guys have gotten quality minutes in the first half and I think it’s gonna be really important of how we finish, how we show what we’ve learned in these next (40) games and how I think it’s going to be clear in a lot of ways with what these guys need,” he said last week. “With one being the experience, two being having guys out there that can help them get through that. I think the best learning environments are when you’re having success and you know you’re getting better.”

The success isn’t coming, though, so now what?

Earlier this month, Miller dismissed the idea of giving Knox minutes in the G League, despite the crunch he’s seen with the Knicks. Ntilikina hasn’t played there either during his first three seasons. The G League — despite talks of creating vertical integration between the Knicks and Westchester, and reducing the stigma of being assigned there — doesn’t seem like an outlet for the organization’s top picks.

Are minutes the end-all, be-all in their own right for young players? No one has mastered development yet — even the best organizations have picks that flop. Does it matter that Knox is 24th among all second-year players in minutes per game this season among sophomores that have played at least 15 games? Robinson is 19th. Ntilikina is 26th among all third-year players in minutes per night.

The production aspect of this matters, too. Knox has struggled mightily this season. Ntilikina has had his moments over the course of his career, but has had immense trouble being a productive offensive player. (He ranks in the 67th percentile in defending opposing pick-and-roll ball-handlers, allowing 0.8 points-per-possession according to Synergy Sports.) Playing time comes for those who earn it, but on a losing team should the standard be as high and focused differently?

The Knicks’ young players have populated the wrong leaderboards so far this season. Smith has regressed by miles from where he was when he joined the franchise last season. And there is this: Six recent lottery picks sit among the bottom 14 in worst effective field goal percentage among all players with at least 700 minutes played this season. Three of them play for the Knicks.

They have doled out minutes with a firehose (Barrett, Knox last year) and by spigot (Knox this year, Ntilikina). With 38 games left, the Knicks have more time to develop their young players going into the offseason. How much of it will they spend on the floor?

[god shammgod]

Read on Twitter

anybody with access ?

I don’t normally share the whole things but this is too damned important and well written to lock behind a paywall and I’m using my phone. I may segment this later to push more heads to support the athletic...read it while you can

There is a paradox with the Knicks right now. They have played their young players a lot, and yet it seems like it’s not enough. That, more than anything else, provides a source of tension about the franchise for the remainder of the season.

Consider this stat, which might surprise you: As of Monday morning, the Knicks had given about 40 percent of their minutes to players 22 years old or younger — second in the NBA behind only the Hawks, according to numbers derived by The Athletic’s Seth Partnow. New York, with its oodles of big men and fluctuating rotations, has actually devoted a significant portion of minutes to the players most in need of time and basketball nourishment.

Still, it might not be enough. Take the Pelicans — 33 percent of their roster (Zion Williamson notwithstanding because of his injury) are 22 or younger, but they had played 39.5 percent of New Orleans’ minutes as of Monday. Or Atlanta, which has used up 35.3 percent of its roster (including two-ways) on players 22 and younger, but leads the league by giving them 53.5 percent of its available playing time. The Knicks, however, have young players take up 40 percent of their roster and had them use up 40.8 percent of their playing time.

Which brings us to present day. The Knicks are 12-32 and tied for the NBA’s third-worst record. They are seven games behind the Nets for the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference and only 2.5 games better than the Warriors, who sit at the bottom of the league-wide standings. The objective for the Knicks shouldn’t be trying to notch the best lottery odds (last season should be proof that the lottery is more capricious now) or tanking (the losses are flowing in quickly enough naturally). The objective should be maximizing the rest of this season.

What’s the best way to do that? The Knicks have decided — and while interim coach Mike Miller is the one making the lineups, this is, presumably, an organization-wide decision — to lean on the veterans. In the two games since RJ Barrett was injured, New York has started Taj Gibson, Julius Randle, Marcus Morris Sr., Elfrid Payton and Reggie Bullock. All five players were brought in last summer. All are at least 25 years old and in at least their sixth season in the NBA. Only one is on a guaranteed contract for next season.

The rationale might be simple enough: These veterans can help the Knicks win more than their kids. That seems easy in a vacuum. Basketball teams should try to win games, and the Knicks especially. They stated their goal for this season before it began.

“Every night we go out there to play, we’re playing to win,” general manager Scott Perry said in September. “We’re playing to win. We’re not in the prediction business. I’m not here to predict records. But I expect us to be better, an improved basketball team. I expect the team to grow and develop and to show that and exhibit that throughout the course of the season.”

The Knicks expected to be better this year than last year, when they won just 17 games. They puffed up half their roster with veterans on, essentially, one-year deals alongside half a roster of emerging talents. The results haven’t been much different — they were 10-35 on the morning of Jan. 22 last year.

Reality hasn’t met expectations for the Knicks so far, and so they must triage the final 38 games. They can continue to try to win games even though each win might have reached a point of diminishing returns for them. The Knicks have discussed building a culture ever since Perry came aboard and joined Steve Mills in the front office. At this point it’s not clear they have. Would the surplus wins they can squeeze out of the roster playing veterans go that far to that end?

They could choose to focus on the growth and development part of Perry’s comments instead. Winning and development aren’t necessarily a zero sum game. Plenty of teams have done both. The Knicks have shown little of either.

Perhaps the trade deadline, coming on Feb. 6, will serve as an organic solution. The Knicks could offload several veterans, opening up time for the youth stuck in neutral behind them. If the Knicks deal Morris, that would create a larger opportunity for Kevin Knox. Pruning the depth chart in the front court would open up time for Mitchell Robinson.

But the Knicks might also keep the status quo. Their desire to improve this season is its own end, and keeping this roster intact might be the means necessary. Keeping veteran players around would help the Knicks’ record and become evidence of the improvement the front office spoke of before the year, but would it come with a longer-term cost?

There are coaches around the league, though, who believe playing time is necessary for growth. There is no threshold to hit to be able to say that a player is getting enough minutes. But it is worth examining how playing time has been doled out this season for the Knicks. There is a utility to keeping some of the veterans; their presence on the court could help the young players by providing a better structure for them to play in. That would also make it harder for them to play at all.

Frank Ntilikina is averaging 21.9 minutes per game this season — 0.9 more than last season. Robinson is averaging 22.7 minutes — 2.1 more than 2018-19. Knox is getting 19.3 minutes a night — 9.5 fewer minutes than as a rookie. Then there is Allonzo Trier, who has been virtually mothballed in his second season, and Damyean Dotson, the third-year wing who is playing 10.9 fewer minutes per night.

A closer inspection shows that Robinson is truly the only beneficiary of the minutes game this season. He’s averaging 24.1 minutes per game since Miller took over — 3.1 more minutes than under David Fizdale. But he shares the center position with Gibson and Bobby Portis.

Ntilikina, who found his way into the starting lineup when Payton got hurt and Dennis Smith Jr. left the team for personal reasons, is averaging 17.8 minutes since Miller took over, which coincided with Payton’s return. Since Knox played 32 minutes in a loss at Chicago Nov. 12, he is averaging 17.8 minutes per night, too.

Miller has elucidated his thoughts on how to balance winning and development.

“We’ve got a whole half a season in front of us and these guys have gotten quality minutes in the first half and I think it’s gonna be really important of how we finish, how we show what we’ve learned in these next (40) games and how I think it’s going to be clear in a lot of ways with what these guys need,” he said last week. “With one being the experience, two being having guys out there that can help them get through that. I think the best learning environments are when you’re having success and you know you’re getting better.”

The success isn’t coming, though, so now what?

Earlier this month, Miller dismissed the idea of giving Knox minutes in the G League, despite the crunch he’s seen with the Knicks. Ntilikina hasn’t played there either during his first three seasons. The G League — despite talks of creating vertical integration between the Knicks and Westchester, and reducing the stigma of being assigned there — doesn’t seem like an outlet for the organization’s top picks.

Are minutes the end-all, be-all in their own right for young players? No one has mastered development yet — even the best organizations have picks that flop. Does it matter that Knox is 24th among all second-year players in minutes per game this season among sophomores that have played at least 15 games? Robinson is 19th. Ntilikina is 26th among all third-year players in minutes per night.

The production aspect of this matters, too. Knox has struggled mightily this season. Ntilikina has had his moments over the course of his career, but has had immense trouble being a productive offensive player. (He ranks in the 67th percentile in defending opposing pick-and-roll ball-handlers, allowing 0.8 points-per-possession according to Synergy Sports.) Playing time comes for those who earn it, but on a losing team should the standard be as high and focused differently?

The Knicks’ young players have populated the wrong leaderboards so far this season. Smith has regressed by miles from where he was when he joined the franchise last season. And there is this: Six recent lottery picks sit among the bottom 14 in worst effective field goal percentage among all players with at least 700 minutes played this season. Three of them play for the Knicks.

They have doled out minutes with a firehose (Barrett, Knox last year) and by spigot (Knox this year, Ntilikina). With 38 games left, the Knicks have more time to develop their young players going into the offseason. How much of it will they spend on the floor?

the end of this is kind of where i am. i would LIKE to see the kids play more, i'm not sure it really matters towards their development much. i don't really believe the difference between kevin knox developing this year or not is 5 minutes more a game. that being said, now that we've reached the 2nd half of the season i expect we'll see them a little more.

[GONYK]

Read on Twitter

anybody with access ?

I don’t normally share the whole things but this is too damned important and well written to lock behind a paywall and I’m using my phone. I may segment this later to push more heads to support the athletic...read it while you can

Spoiler:

There is a paradox with the Knicks right now. They have played their young players a lot, and yet it seems like it’s not enough. That, more than anything else, provides a source of tension about the franchise for the remainder of the season.

Consider this stat, which might surprise you: As of Monday morning, the Knicks had given about 40 percent of their minutes to players 22 years old or younger — second in the NBA behind only the Hawks, according to numbers derived by The Athletic’s Seth Partnow. New York, with its oodles of big men and fluctuating rotations, has actually devoted a significant portion of minutes to the players most in need of time and basketball nourishment.

Still, it might not be enough. Take the Pelicans — 33 percent of their roster (Zion Williamson notwithstanding because of his injury) are 22 or younger, but they had played 39.5 percent of New Orleans’ minutes as of Monday. Or Atlanta, which has used up 35.3 percent of its roster (including two-ways) on players 22 and younger, but leads the league by giving them 53.5 percent of its available playing time. The Knicks, however, have young players take up 40 percent of their roster and had them use up 40.8 percent of their playing time.

Which brings us to present day. The Knicks are 12-32 and tied for the NBA’s third-worst record. They are seven games behind the Nets for the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference and only 2.5 games better than the Warriors, who sit at the bottom of the league-wide standings. The objective for the Knicks shouldn’t be trying to notch the best lottery odds (last season should be proof that the lottery is more capricious now) or tanking (the losses are flowing in quickly enough naturally). The objective should be maximizing the rest of this season.

What’s the best way to do that? The Knicks have decided — and while interim coach Mike Miller is the one making the lineups, this is, presumably, an organization-wide decision — to lean on the veterans. In the two games since RJ Barrett was injured, New York has started Taj Gibson, Julius Randle, Marcus Morris Sr., Elfrid Payton and Reggie Bullock. All five players were brought in last summer. All are at least 25 years old and in at least their sixth season in the NBA. Only one is on a guaranteed contract for next season.

The rationale might be simple enough: These veterans can help the Knicks win more than their kids. That seems easy in a vacuum. Basketball teams should try to win games, and the Knicks especially. They stated their goal for this season before it began.

“Every night we go out there to play, we’re playing to win,” general manager Scott Perry said in September. “We’re playing to win. We’re not in the prediction business. I’m not here to predict records. But I expect us to be better, an improved basketball team. I expect the team to grow and develop and to show that and exhibit that throughout the course of the season.”

The Knicks expected to be better this year than last year, when they won just 17 games. They puffed up half their roster with veterans on, essentially, one-year deals alongside half a roster of emerging talents. The results haven’t been much different — they were 10-35 on the morning of Jan. 22 last year.

Reality hasn’t met expectations for the Knicks so far, and so they must triage the final 38 games. They can continue to try to win games even though each win might have reached a point of diminishing returns for them. The Knicks have discussed building a culture ever since Perry came aboard and joined Steve Mills in the front office. At this point it’s not clear they have. Would the surplus wins they can squeeze out of the roster playing veterans go that far to that end?

They could choose to focus on the growth and development part of Perry’s comments instead. Winning and development aren’t necessarily a zero sum game. Plenty of teams have done both. The Knicks have shown little of either.

Perhaps the trade deadline, coming on Feb. 6, will serve as an organic solution. The Knicks could offload several veterans, opening up time for the youth stuck in neutral behind them. If the Knicks deal Morris, that would create a larger opportunity for Kevin Knox. Pruning the depth chart in the front court would open up time for Mitchell Robinson.

But the Knicks might also keep the status quo. Their desire to improve this season is its own end, and keeping this roster intact might be the means necessary. Keeping veteran players around would help the Knicks’ record and become evidence of the improvement the front office spoke of before the year, but would it come with a longer-term cost?

There are coaches around the league, though, who believe playing time is necessary for growth. There is no threshold to hit to be able to say that a player is getting enough minutes. But it is worth examining how playing time has been doled out this season for the Knicks. There is a utility to keeping some of the veterans; their presence on the court could help the young players by providing a better structure for them to play in. That would also make it harder for them to play at all.

Frank Ntilikina is averaging 21.9 minutes per game this season — 0.9 more than last season. Robinson is averaging 22.7 minutes — 2.1 more than 2018-19. Knox is getting 19.3 minutes a night — 9.5 fewer minutes than as a rookie. Then there is Allonzo Trier, who has been virtually mothballed in his second season, and Damyean Dotson, the third-year wing who is playing 10.9 fewer minutes per night.

A closer inspection shows that Robinson is truly the only beneficiary of the minutes game this season. He’s averaging 24.1 minutes per game since Miller took over — 3.1 more minutes than under David Fizdale. But he shares the center position with Gibson and Bobby Portis.

Ntilikina, who found his way into the starting lineup when Payton got hurt and Dennis Smith Jr. left the team for personal reasons, is averaging 17.8 minutes since Miller took over, which coincided with Payton’s return. Since Knox played 32 minutes in a loss at Chicago Nov. 12, he is averaging 17.8 minutes per night, too.

Miller has elucidated his thoughts on how to balance winning and development.

“We’ve got a whole half a season in front of us and these guys have gotten quality minutes in the first half and I think it’s gonna be really important of how we finish, how we show what we’ve learned in these next (40) games and how I think it’s going to be clear in a lot of ways with what these guys need,” he said last week. “With one being the experience, two being having guys out there that can help them get through that. I think the best learning environments are when you’re having success and you know you’re getting better.”

The success isn’t coming, though, so now what?

Earlier this month, Miller dismissed the idea of giving Knox minutes in the G League, despite the crunch he’s seen with the Knicks. Ntilikina hasn’t played there either during his first three seasons. The G League — despite talks of creating vertical integration between the Knicks and Westchester, and reducing the stigma of being assigned there — doesn’t seem like an outlet for the organization’s top picks.

Are minutes the end-all, be-all in their own right for young players? No one has mastered development yet — even the best organizations have picks that flop. Does it matter that Knox is 24th among all second-year players in minutes per game this season among sophomores that have played at least 15 games? Robinson is 19th. Ntilikina is 26th among all third-year players in minutes per night.

The production aspect of this matters, too. Knox has struggled mightily this season. Ntilikina has had his moments over the course of his career, but has had immense trouble being a productive offensive player. (He ranks in the 67th percentile in defending opposing pick-and-roll ball-handlers, allowing 0.8 points-per-possession according to Synergy Sports.) Playing time comes for those who earn it, but on a losing team should the standard be as high and focused differently?

The Knicks’ young players have populated the wrong leaderboards so far this season. Smith has regressed by miles from where he was when he joined the franchise last season. And there is this: Six recent lottery picks sit among the bottom 14 in worst effective field goal percentage among all players with at least 700 minutes played this season. Three of them play for the Knicks.

They have doled out minutes with a firehose (Barrett, Knox last year) and by spigot (Knox this year, Ntilikina). With 38 games left, the Knicks have more time to develop their young players going into the offseason. How much of it will they spend on the floor?

Vork nailed it here.

Pills seems to think that simply having capspace and more wins is success, and so they have rigidly achieved those things in the short term with no real plan beyond it.

They aren't paying attention to, or don't have the competence to steer the underlying process that leads to those things organically.

It's cargo culting at it's finest.

[god shammgod]

we have more wins ? i'm pretty sure they failed at what they thought that would look like.

[GONYK]

we have more wins ? i'm pretty sure they failed at what they thought that would look like.

Oh, they most certainly failed at what they wanted to achieve.

But you know they will show up at the end of the year and claim that our 23 wins is a clear step forward.

[god shammgod]

we have more wins ? i'm pretty sure they failed at what they thought that would look like.

Oh, they most certainly failed at what they wanted to achieve.

But you know they will show up at the end of the year and claim that our 23 wins is a clear step forward.

dolan is not going for that. the only way they'll survive is if he has his heart set on masai and is gonna let them stay 1 more year until he can attempt to sign him.

[GONYK]

we have more wins ? i'm pretty sure they failed at what they thought that would look like.

Oh, they most certainly failed at what they wanted to achieve.

But you know they will show up at the end of the year and claim that our 23 wins is a clear step forward.

dolan is not going for that. the only way they'll survive is if he has his heart set on masai and is gonna let them stay 1 more year until he can attempt to sign him.

I didn't say Dolan would go for it. I said they will try and pitch it.

I'm of the (eternal) hope that they became zombies the day Fiz was fired.

[prophet_of_rage]

I’m just posting the facts. However you chose to interpret them is your problem.

Read the actual article to find your answers.

I read the actual article. It is leading to an opinion piece. It also glosses over the point that RJ who is our most important piece plays better with Frank and then calls.Mitch a foundational piece. The reportage is less than unbiased. The actual evidence suggests no real difference. 8 players shoot better with Elf and 7 shoot better with Frank.

Sent from my SM-N970W using Tapatalk

[Deeeez Knicks]

I say play the kids, but there probably isn’t an easy solution. Play the kids and you will fail. Play the vets and you will fail. Try to find a balance and you will fail. The pieces just aren’t good enough and don’t fit together. The roster is a mess. All this cap space and draft picks and we may only have 2 or 3 keepers on the roster.

[NYKAL]

worst thing to happen to us was Fiba. Made us believe Frank would grow into an actual threat. That he would learn to shoot and stop being a negative on the offensive side. It also made us think he could be a lockdown defender instead of just a good one. Made us believe that there was a gem inside him and all we had to do was ship away the rock and sediment. The truth is we have another 2 or 3rd string guard we hoped would grow into starter material.

[prophet_of_rage]

Read on Twitter

anybody with access ?

I don’t normally share the whole things but this is too damned important and well written to lock behind a paywall and I’m using my phone. I may segment this later to push more heads to support the athletic...read it while you can

There is a paradox with the Knicks right now. They have played their young players a lot, and yet it seems like it’s not enough. That, more than anything else, provides a source of tension about the franchise for the remainder of the season.

Consider this stat, which might surprise you: As of Monday morning, the Knicks had given about 40 percent of their minutes to players 22 years old or younger — second in the NBA behind only the Hawks, according to numbers derived by The Athletic’s Seth Partnow. New York, with its oodles of big men and fluctuating rotations, has actually devoted a significant portion of minutes to the players most in need of time and basketball nourishment.

Still, it might not be enough. Take the Pelicans — 33 percent of their roster (Zion Williamson notwithstanding because of his injury) are 22 or younger, but they had played 39.5 percent of New Orleans’ minutes as of Monday. Or Atlanta, which has used up 35.3 percent of its roster (including two-ways) on players 22 and younger, but leads the league by giving them 53.5 percent of its available playing time. The Knicks, however, have young players take up 40 percent of their roster and had them use up 40.8 percent of their playing time.

Which brings us to present day. The Knicks are 12-32 and tied for the NBA’s third-worst record. They are seven games behind the Nets for the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference and only 2.5 games better than the Warriors, who sit at the bottom of the league-wide standings. The objective for the Knicks shouldn’t be trying to notch the best lottery odds (last season should be proof that the lottery is more capricious now) or tanking (the losses are flowing in quickly enough naturally). The objective should be maximizing the rest of this season.

What’s the best way to do that? The Knicks have decided — and while interim coach Mike Miller is the one making the lineups, this is, presumably, an organization-wide decision — to lean on the veterans. In the two games since RJ Barrett was injured, New York has started Taj Gibson, Julius Randle, Marcus Morris Sr., Elfrid Payton and Reggie Bullock. All five players were brought in last summer. All are at least 25 years old and in at least their sixth season in the NBA. Only one is on a guaranteed contract for next season.

The rationale might be simple enough: These veterans can help the Knicks win more than their kids. That seems easy in a vacuum. Basketball teams should try to win games, and the Knicks especially. They stated their goal for this season before it began.

“Every night we go out there to play, we’re playing to win,” general manager Scott Perry said in September. “We’re playing to win. We’re not in the prediction business. I’m not here to predict records. But I expect us to be better, an improved basketball team. I expect the team to grow and develop and to show that and exhibit that throughout the course of the season.”

The Knicks expected to be better this year than last year, when they won just 17 games. They puffed up half their roster with veterans on, essentially, one-year deals alongside half a roster of emerging talents. The results haven’t been much different — they were 10-35 on the morning of Jan. 22 last year.

Reality hasn’t met expectations for the Knicks so far, and so they must triage the final 38 games. They can continue to try to win games even though each win might have reached a point of diminishing returns for them. The Knicks have discussed building a culture ever since Perry came aboard and joined Steve Mills in the front office. At this point it’s not clear they have. Would the surplus wins they can squeeze out of the roster playing veterans go that far to that end?

They could choose to focus on the growth and development part of Perry’s comments instead. Winning and development aren’t necessarily a zero sum game. Plenty of teams have done both. The Knicks have shown little of either.

Perhaps the trade deadline, coming on Feb. 6, will serve as an organic solution. The Knicks could offload several veterans, opening up time for the youth stuck in neutral behind them. If the Knicks deal Morris, that would create a larger opportunity for Kevin Knox. Pruning the depth chart in the front court would open up time for Mitchell Robinson.

But the Knicks might also keep the status quo. Their desire to improve this season is its own end, and keeping this roster intact might be the means necessary. Keeping veteran players around would help the Knicks’ record and become evidence of the improvement the front office spoke of before the year, but would it come with a longer-term cost?

There are coaches around the league, though, who believe playing time is necessary for growth. There is no threshold to hit to be able to say that a player is getting enough minutes. But it is worth examining how playing time has been doled out this season for the Knicks. There is a utility to keeping some of the veterans; their presence on the court could help the young players by providing a better structure for them to play in. That would also make it harder for them to play at all.

Frank Ntilikina is averaging 21.9 minutes per game this season — 0.9 more than last season. Robinson is averaging 22.7 minutes — 2.1 more than 2018-19. Knox is getting 19.3 minutes a night — 9.5 fewer minutes than as a rookie. Then there is Allonzo Trier, who has been virtually mothballed in his second season, and Damyean Dotson, the third-year wing who is playing 10.9 fewer minutes per night.

A closer inspection shows that Robinson is truly the only beneficiary of the minutes game this season. He’s averaging 24.1 minutes per game since Miller took over — 3.1 more minutes than under David Fizdale. But he shares the center position with Gibson and Bobby Portis.

Ntilikina, who found his way into the starting lineup when Payton got hurt and Dennis Smith Jr. left the team for personal reasons, is averaging 17.8 minutes since Miller took over, which coincided with Payton’s return. Since Knox played 32 minutes in a loss at Chicago Nov. 12, he is averaging 17.8 minutes per night, too.

Miller has elucidated his thoughts on how to balance winning and development.

“We’ve got a whole half a season in front of us and these guys have gotten quality minutes in the first half and I think it’s gonna be really important of how we finish, how we show what we’ve learned in these next (40) games and how I think it’s going to be clear in a lot of ways with what these guys need,” he said last week. “With one being the experience, two being having guys out there that can help them get through that. I think the best learning environments are when you’re having success and you know you’re getting better.”

The success isn’t coming, though, so now what?

Earlier this month, Miller dismissed the idea of giving Knox minutes in the G League, despite the crunch he’s seen with the Knicks. Ntilikina hasn’t played there either during his first three seasons. The G League — despite talks of creating vertical integration between the Knicks and Westchester, and reducing the stigma of being assigned there — doesn’t seem like an outlet for the organization’s top picks.

Are minutes the end-all, be-all in their own right for young players? No one has mastered development yet — even the best organizations have picks that flop. Does it matter that Knox is 24th among all second-year players in minutes per game this season among sophomores that have played at least 15 games? Robinson is 19th. Ntilikina is 26th among all third-year players in minutes per night.

The production aspect of this matters, too. Knox has struggled mightily this season. Ntilikina has had his moments over the course of his career, but has had immense trouble being a productive offensive player. (He ranks in the 67th percentile in defending opposing pick-and-roll ball-handlers, allowing 0.8 points-per-possession according to Synergy Sports.) Playing time comes for those who earn it, but on a losing team should the standard be as high and focused differently?

The Knicks’ young players have populated the wrong leaderboards so far this season. Smith has regressed by miles from where he was when he joined the franchise last season. And there is this: Six recent lottery picks sit among the bottom 14 in worst effective field goal percentage among all players with at least 700 minutes played this season. Three of them play for the Knicks.

They have doled out minutes with a firehose (Barrett, Knox last year) and by spigot (Knox this year, Ntilikina). With 38 games left, the Knicks have more time to develop their young players going into the offseason. How much of it will they spend on the floor?

the end of this is kind of where i am. i would LIKE to see the kids play more, i'm not sure it really matters towards their development much. i don't really believe the difference between kevin knox developing this year or not is 5 minutes more a game. that being said, now that we've reached the 2nd half of the season i expect we'll see them a little more.

Just rearrange the deck chairs and lose the fan base entirely when they realisenthenorg has made a bunch of bad picks.

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[GONYK]

I say play the kids, but there probably isn’t an easy solution. Play the kids and you will fail. Play the vets and you will fail. Try to find a balance and you will fail. The pieces just aren’t good enough and don’t fit together. The roster is a mess. All this cap space and draft picks and we may only have 2 or 3 keepers on the roster.

I think this all depends on your definition of failure.

[prophet_of_rage]

I say play the kids, but there probably isn’t an easy solution. Play the kids and you will fail. Play the vets and you will fail. Try to find a balance and you will fail. The pieces just aren’t good enough and don’t fit together. The roster is a mess. All this cap space and draft picks and we may only have 2 or 3 keepers on the roster.

I think this all depends on your definition of failure.

The kids will not be able to compete at all and get exposed as bad picks so you don't even have hope to sell ... that's failure. Which this is.

[Deeeez Knicks]

I say play the kids, but there probably isn’t an easy solution. Play the kids and you will fail. Play the vets and you will fail. Try to find a balance and you will fail. The pieces just aren’t good enough and don’t fit together. The roster is a mess. All this cap space and draft picks and we may only have 2 or 3 keepers on the roster.

I think this all depends on your definition of failure.

True, I think some players would look bad and we would lose even more, which I would be ok with especially if they look better by the end of the season. But from the coach/front office/owner point of view…they want to be competitive so it would not be a good look

[GONYK]

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[Kampuchea]

Frank has been a net negative due to his offensive deficiencies. Most surprising to me is I expected Elfrid to be much higher than Frank. Elfrid is exactly at the break point from being a net positive/negative player.

At least we didn't sign Rozier

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/page/2/position/1

Dennis Smith, Knox and Gibson are in the worst player in the league range
http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/page/12

[matchman]

The Laker game has shown that Frank's mental is not strong enough and a floater is sorely needed in his offensive arsenal, no matter being a PG or a wing player.

His ball dribbling and pass are definitely improved from last season, but his jumpshots seem to draw more attention from his opponent and the percentage dips significantly.

But that said, he is a keeper for me still. What I worry is that whether Knicks is the team that can develop their own crop of homegrown rookies. (Charlie Ward being the last longest playing Knicks rookie after Ewing?)