After their gut-wrenching 104-103 victory over the Chicago Bulls on Thursday night, the New York Knicks now find themselves at the top of the Eastern Conference at 4-1.
New York currently has the fourth-best offensive rating in the league (112.6) and the fourth-best net rating (+6.6) in the NBA, per NBA Stats. That's a far cry from last season, when they found themselves 22nd in offensive rating (110.2) and ninth in net rating (+2.4).
(The defense also hasn't completely fallen off a cliff, either, through five games — 15th this year in defensive rating (106.1) vs. fourth last year (107.8). So their hard number figure has actually gotten better, but — thanks to the rule changes this year? — their bottom line defensive rating has actually been a point and a half better so far this season.)
The thing about it is, this offense has a lot of room to get better, which seems insane when you consider the night-and-day metamorphosis it's already gone through this year. As Zach Lowe noted in his most recent '10 Things column,' the Knicks' new backcourt of Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier are a combined 17-38 on pull-up threes so far this year. All of last season combined, Elfrid Payton and Reggie Bullock had nine such makes. That's a huge amount of progress and an invaluable new skill for the Knicks that has paid enormous dividends.
But what hasn't been paying dividends thus far is some of last year's progress from the incumbents — namely Julius Randle, RJ Barrett, Alec Burks, and Immanuel Quickley. The Knicks were among the lowest teams in the league in 3-point attempts (27th in the NBA, 30 attempts) and attempt rate (25th, .347) last season, but featured a robust five regular rotation players that shot over 40% from deep (Randle, Barrett, Derrick Rose, Bullock and Burks) as well as the rookie sensation Quickley, coming in just under the mark at 38.9%.
This season, that group of five remaining from last year's squad (minus Bullock, who's with the Mavs now) is shooting a combined 42-122 from deep (34.4%). Take away Rose and his hot 12-22 shooting (54.5%), and the remaining four are shooting just a paltry 30% from deep (a clean 30-100).
Assuming those four Knicks get back on track and shoot even 35% from deep for this year combined (some regression was to be expected league-wide this year thanks to crowds being back, but 35% should still probably be considered a low-water mark for those four considering the context of their careers), that's 15 more points scored across the Knicks' five games so far this year. That would vault them over the Los Angeles Lakers for the second spot in points per game in the NBA at a staggering 118.3. And that's just a presumed low-water mark if they start hitting at roughly league average.
Let's instead assume the Knicks can get to 38% from deep among those same guys on the same volume they're shooting right now. That means eight more threes made thus far (side note, it's really nice of them to have taken exactly 100 threes between them so I don't even need to bust out the calculator), which equals 24 more points total. That would put them at 120.6 points per game, just a hair under Charlotte's 121.2 mark so far this season for tops in the entire NBA.
Now, projecting like this also assumes that Kemba will continue shooting 58.1% from deep (not super likely), Rose will continue shooting 54.5% (also not super likely) and Fournier will continue shooting 41.9% (with the quality of looks he's getting… not impossible?). So perhaps it's a bit much to assume the Knicks could get THAT much better on offense, and might just hang tight as a top-five offense rather than a top-one-or-two offense.
But that also assumes that the Knicks don't embrace the newfound space their prolific 3-point shooting gives them, which they hopefully will be doing. Per Cleaning the Glass, the Knicks are just 17th in the NBA in percentage of shots taken around the rim (31.9%). That said, thanks to some improved shooting there from Randle (61%) and stalwart Mitchell Robinson (90%), the Knicks as a team are making 70.8% of their shots at the rim, good for fourth in the NBA to this point. If they choose to embrace that aspect of the game more and use threes more as a diversionary tactic (or simply pass up on the threes that become more difficult with aggressive close-outs), it could be key to unlocking an even more potent offense.
No matter what, this Knicks offense feels sustainable, and perhaps like it's nowhere near its peak. As the most potent players from the 2020-21 campaign regain their form and join the success their new teammates are experiencing, 4 Penn Plaza could become the home of one of the, if not the, most potent offense in the NBA in due time.
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