New York Knicks: Another wasted season with nothing learned

Give the boys some time

Ntilikina has gotten more time than Knox and has shown growth in his third season. There is an odd parallel, young players who play more, develop faster. Imagine what Ntilikina might do with more than 20 minutes a game. When your team is fighting for that eighth seed though, it’s important to give almost 50 minutes a night to Payton and Bullock. (The Knicks record is 21-45 by the way.)

New York Knicks fans probably thought that with Steve Mills and the high-grade hallucinogens he was on now gone, the team would shift away from playing veterans and hoping to make the playoffs, to playing the younger guys and seeing who’s worth keeping and who should be moved out. Nope. To paraphrase the great Judge Smails of Bushwood Country Club…”You will get Bobby Portis and like it!”

Even if the Knicks have soured on Knox or the even more perplexing Dennis Smith Jr., why not play them and let them have a few big games? Try and see if anyone else around the league would give back something for either them in the offseason. Instead, the Knicks depressed the pair’s value even more by limiting their ability to showcase any skills at all. For what? Is Payton/Bullock the backcourt of the future at MSG?

Why is Mitchell Robinson continuing to come off the bench? Let him foul out every night if you have to. The only way he is going to improve is by playing in games with officials, against top competition and learning from his mistakes. Robinson is arguably the best player on the team and one of the better young players in the league. So the New York Knicks reward him with 23 minutes a night. They are turning him into Montrezl Harrell…kudos.