Dennis Smith Jr. has been a different kind of player since being traded to the New York Knicks just a few weeks ago.
It appears that nothing is strong enough to hold the second-year guard down at the moment, not even a soaring dunk attempt from 6-foot-10 Orlando Magic power forward Jonathan Isaac.
DSJ swats it away! #NewYorkForever
WATCH on #NBA League Pass pic.twitter.com/cZsY7DICVQ
— NBA (@NBA) February 27, 2019
The staredown-worthy rejection serves as just a blurb of what Dennis Smith Jr. has been up to since arriving to New York.
Smith, 21, has averaged four more points per contest than what he posted this year while with the Dallas Mavericks. The heavy emergence of Mavs rookie Luka Doncic had plenty to do with that. Doncic is the current frontrunner to take home the Rookie of the Year award, as he leads all first-year players in scoring with 20.9 points.
Knicks head coach David Fizdale has recently been placing a lot of emphasis on his newly-acquired franchise guard's physicality and his body's overall well-being.
“How we do things here, we really want to jump-start him on educating him about nutrition and what he’s putting in his body and how we go about getting in better shape at this time of year so we don’t crush his legs, Fizdale told Marc Berman of The New York Post. And how’s his sleep? We had a good long talk about that, and I spent a lot of time with him trying to educate him on the importance of all this stuff. He really took it to heart.”
Smith is currently averaging 16.1 points, 2.9 rebounds, 6.9 assists and 1.8 steals in nine games played in The Big Apple.
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