Schmeelk: Knicks' Season Ends With More Questions Than Answers
By John Schmeelk
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As the Knicks finish their second full season under Phil Jackson's reign as president, there was supposed to be clear growth and direction with a young and improving roster. Instead, the Knicks are staring at an offseason that will start with a new full-time coach and a roster that could be torn down once again.
When we previewed the Knicks season back in October, I predicted the team would win 36 games. They finished with 32, just four short. If Carmelo Anthony didn't miss 10 games due to injury (the Knicks went 0-10 in those games), they probably would have been right around 36. Coming off a brutal 17-win campaign last year, it's not a bad rebuilding season, but only if you look at the numbers.
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If the team still had a young head coach that was learning on the job and improving at a steady rate, fans would be more optimistic. Instead, Derek Fisher didn't turn out to be the guy, and now the Knicks are in the market for a head coach once again. Assuming the Knicks don't hire Tom Thibodeau, there will be fair questions about the championship chops of whomever they hire.
Two rotation players, Arron Afflalo and Derrick Williams, appear poised to opt out for different reasons. Afflalo is unhappy he was demoted to the bench, while Williams thinks he played well enough to earn more than the nearly $5 million due to him if he doesn't opt out. Afflalo is somewhat deranged if he thinks he is an upper-echelon starter in the league, while Williams is probably right in his belief he can find a better deal on the free-agent market.
Two young, improving rotation players, Langston Galloway and Lance Thomas, are both free agents. Galloway is restricted, and the Knicks hold limited Bird rights on Thomas. Galloway will have a cap hold of $2.7 million, and Thomas a cap hold of $2.1 million.
If the Knicks want to bring back any of those four players, they will have to cut into their cap space, which right now (assuming Afflalo opts out), is barely enough to afford a max contract.
The other questions that plagued the Knicks before the season also remain. Despite Kristaps Porzingis' potential and the late-season charge by Jerian Grant, they do not have a dependable secondary scorer to help Carmelo Anthony on a nightly basis.
The team still doesn't defend well enough. They finished 18th in defensive efficiency, still nowhere near good enough to be an upper-echelon team. Only two current playoff teams rank below the Knicks, the Trail Blazers and Grizzlies. If the Rockets make it, they would be a third. Those defensive deficiencies can be linked directly to the backcourt where Jose Calderon is not a starting-caliber point guard anymore due to his inability to defend.
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The Knicks don't know who their starting guards are next year. If Afflalo opts out, they don't have a true shooting guard on the roster (sorry, Sasha) and their two point guards -- Grant and Tony Wroten -- are young and unproven. Those two players would be, however, automatic upgrades defensively.
There are also renewed questions as to whether Anthony, tired of the team's inability to put a good roster around him, will ask to be sent to a team where he might have a chance to win a championship. At the very least, his long-term health seems to be secure after playing well enough coming off of knee surgery.
Free agency can fix some of these problems, but there is a lot of money out there, and the class is not very deep. The Knicks will have a lot of competition for a limited pool of players, and there's no guarantee they can woo the players they need.
The Knicks, at the very least, answered one question this year: Porzingis is the real deal. He will only get better from here as he gets stronger, becomes a more consistent shooter and develops a half-court offensive game with the ball in his hands.
Next year the Knicks will have Anthony, Robin Lopez, Porzingis, Grant, Kyle O'Quinn and Wroten. Calderon could be waived under the stretch provision. Willy Hernangomez might come over from overseas. The rest of the roster is a big fat question mark, and the team doesn't have any draft picks this year, either.
The first step will be hiring a coach, but then there is still a lot of work to do. This roster is still very incomplete, and improving it this offseason might prove difficult given the unpredictable nature of free agency. The Knicks still have a long road ahead of them.
For everything Knicks, Giants and the world of sports, follow John on Twitter at @Schmeelk
