Recently, Phil Jackson voiced a concern about Kristaps Porzingis and made a broad comparison to infamous poster child Shawn Bradley. Jackson mentioned concern that Porzingis' lanky frame could lead to similar problems that plagued Bradley, who lacked the core strength to be a tough rebounder or handle the strength of players inside because he wasn't low enough to get proper leverage. Some guys just aren't built for that type of play.
The New York Knicks were really bad in the 2014-15 season. There's no getting around that. Whether you think the problem was mounds of ineptitude in their way or they were intentionally bad to jump-start the rebuilding process with a high draft pick, they finished with the second-worst record in the NBA and received the No. 4 pick in the draft lottery. With that pick, Jackson and company selected Porzingis, and the arguments about the Latvian big man started to fly.
We decided to have a little fun with the idea and see if the Knicks would actually want the good version of Bradley as the baseline for Porzingis next season. In Bradley's best season (1996-97), he averaged 13.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 3.2 blocks in 31.3 minutes. He proved to be a presence protecting the rim and on the boards.
By using some win projection simulations provided by SportsLine, we gave Porzingis a modest but fruitful rookie season of 10 points, six rebounds and one block per game to see how the Knicks would fare if he had those averages in a fairly prominent role. We also gave Porzingis those Bradley stats mentioned above to see how the Knicks would do with that type of defensive and rebounding presence. Just for good measure, we projected the Knicks next season if Porzingis plays meaningful minutes, but turns out to be a complete non-entity (ie Frederic Weis.)
Turns out, the Knicks could use a little Shawn Bradley next season:
| The New York Knicks 2015-16 simulated seasons | ||||
| Knicks with (big man) | Wins | Losses | Win % | Playoffs |
| Kristaps Porzingis | 22.2 | 59.8 | 27.1% | < 0.1% |
| Shawn Bradley | 27.8 | 54.2 | 33.9% | 2.0% |
| Frederic Weis | 16.7 | 65.3 | 20.4% | 0.0% |
First off, this seems to be an extremely sour projection of a Knicks team that shouldn't be that bad. I don't know that they'll be "playoff bound" good, but they have too much veteran talent now to be flirting with 20-25 wins. If Porzingis does have to play a heavy amount of minutes, that probably means the Knicks are in trouble from a personnel standpoint. And if that were the case, they'd definitely want the best version of Bradley out there. Knicks fans can also rest easy that Porzingis will be much more effective than whatever Frederic Weis would have given them.
Porzingis is incredibly skilled for a man of his height and inexperience, but he's a bit of a human stick figure. While he should fill out over the next couple years and become a serious weapon for the Knicks, the next season for New York could be a little rough. Jackson did a very good job of bringing in quality veterans to round out the starting lineup and rotation. Robin Lopez helped stabilize a bad defense in Portland and Arron Afflalo is a solid two-way shooting guard. A couple of nice bench additions in Kyle O'Quinn, Kevin Seraphin and No. 19 pick Jerian Grant should help get the Knicks away from the cellar of the NBA.
However, things don't always go the way we expect with the Knicks. A couple of key injuries to the starting lineup could turn the season in a bad way for New York, and they probably don't have the true depth to overcome it. They also don't have the luxury of owning their 2016 first-round pick, so it's not like a repeat of the 2014-15 season would really help them in the long run.
Even if the Knicks aren't completely fixed next season, they should be more than 10 games better than last season. Doubling their win total shouldn't be out of the question. They should feel pretty good that they probably don't have to worry about Porzingis being in this position in his career:
Since we're on the subject, Porzingis also hopefully won't be the target of players deciding they want to dunk on a guy just because everybody does it. That's what happened years ago when Tracy McGrady drove baseline against Dallas and realized who was standing under the rim. He didn't have the intention of dunking until he saw it was Bradley. Then he realized it was time for a highlight.
No matter what you think of the Porzingis pick, we shouldn't wish that type of immortalization on anybody.
