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The Knicks are hardly resembling the team we thought they were

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Who could’ve predicted the New York Knicks would be occupying the final play-in spot a quarter of the way through the season? The Knicks, on the heels of their first playoff appearance since 2013, rolled into the 2021-22 season with a vibe, confidence and swagger fit for the Big Apple.

All of that built-up momentum is gone now. The the Knicks are sitting at .500 after a 5-1 start to the season.

First and foremost, you have to start with Tom Thibodeau — the NBA Coach of the Year a season ago who has the seventh-best odds to repeat (+4000 at Tipico). His defensive imprint isn’t on this team as much as last season, which makes some sense considering a couple of roster differences. Reggie Bullock and Elfrid Payton were defensive specialists in 2020-21 and New York’s front office apparently undervalued their impact. The early-season incorporation of Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier into the starting lineup is surely a factor in the decline on that end of the court, too. Kemba has since been booted from the rotation.

Thibodeau has to figure out his rotations. Taking Walker completely out of the lineup probably wouldn’t be my choice, but I mean…sure? The Knicks were rolling out one of the worst starting units in the league for a good chunk of the season and it took Thibodeau way too long to adjust.

The Knicks’ offense hasn’t even regressed much either compared to a season ago. They’re averaging nearly the same amount of points, are shooting less than one percent worse and have a 1.7-point inferior offensive rating than a season ago. However, it’s completely tailed off since the first month of the season and could use some adjusting of its own. In that area, improvement begins with Julius Randle.

The forward isn’t winning the Knicks games like he was last season en route to a Most Improved Player award. Instead, he’s played closer to the postseason version of himself that struggled to make shots, and hardly found other ways to positively impact the game. His scoring has dipped under 20 points per game while his three-point shot has drastically regressed. Simply put, New York needs him to get back on track and become an MVP type of performer on a nightly basis (+10000 at Tipico).

It’s a somewhat forgotten statistic now, but New York was 5-1 to begin the season mostly thanks to hitting threes at a crazy clip; 16.7 makes per game at better than 40 percent. Those numbers never stood a chance at sustainability and have come crashing back down to earth. As did the Knicks’ scoring output (117.0 ppg in October to 102.3 in November). They could use some positive regression to get the offense back in order and give themselves a better chance to win.

Just one game into the new month the Knicks flashed some improvement; Randle scored an efficient 30 points while the Knicks got to 115 as a team in a loss to the Bulls. They’ll be in a good spot going forward if they can pump out those kinds of numbers.

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