Three takeaways from Knicks training camp so far
Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns passes to forward OG Anunoby during the first half of an NBA preseason game against the Charlotte Hornets Sunday in Charlotte, N.C. Credit: AP/Chris Carlson
1. Sacrifice necessary
Josh Hart struggled to find a rhythm early last season, expressing his frustration with not touching the ball for stretches and then misfiring when faced with a shot opportunity. But he made sure the next game to shout out to the media, “Make sure you tweet that I am not a disgruntled player.”
There will be no confusion this season even as Hart faces an odd adjustment to his role. He emerged as a versatile threat last season, handling the ball often to relieve pressure from Jalen Brunson and still managing to be the best rebounder in the game for his size. While he is still expecting to be in the starting lineup, getting his chances with the ball might drop with the additions of Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns.
The point of this is that not just Hart, but the entire starting five, will have to not only adjust to styles as they grow together, but also sacrifice some of what they’ve done before. Brunson averaged 21.4 field goal attempts per game last season, while Bridges put up 15.8, Towns took 15.3, OG Anunoby shot 11.1 with the Knicks, and Hart had 8.4.
“At the end of the day my job isn’t to go out there and score 20,” Hart said after taking just two shots in the preseason-opening win at Charlotte Sunday. “It’s not to go out there and force things offensively and try to make things happen. My job is to rebound, defend at a high level, offensively kind of be a connector, get into the lane and find guys for open shots, get the rebound, push the pace and get us easy transition buckets. I don’t worry about shots. The shots will come..”
2. Pace changers
The Knicks had set up a pace-changing second unit in recent seasons with Immanuel Quickley, Obi Toppin and Deuce McBride combining with a starter or two. It’s early, but Tom Thibodeau has had high praise for Cam Payne and Landry Shamet playing in the second unit with McBride, Precious Achiuwa and Jericho Sims, speeding up the game in their minutes.
“For sure,” Payne said. “Shoot, like me and Deuce are like one, two right now, trying to pick up full, trying to bring the intensity. Obviously in training camp Coach been preaching play fast. Between me and Deuce we’ve got a lot of speed, so we’ve been trying to translate it to the court.”
“I like the way those guys played fast and they played hard,” Thibodeau said.
3. Rookie watch
Quickley arrived as a rookie for the 2021-22 season and after an ineffective 12-minute performance in an opening night loss he was inactive the next four games. Given another chance he played well in a win at Indiana and missed just one game the rest of the season, averaging nearly 20 minutes per game. Thibodeau does play young players when they earn the time, and that brings us to Tyler Kolek.
Thibodeau has been nearly silent about the rookie point guard through training camp, but Kolek got his chance late in the third quarter of Sunday's game and never sat the rest of the way, helping navigate the team to a win as he was a team-best plus-9 in 14 minutes, scoring 11 points (3-for-5 from beyond the arc) with one assist, no turnovers, two steals and a block.
Kolek is not a typical rookie. He's 23 years old with four seasons of college ball behind him.
“Nothing surprises me,” Brunson said. “He works really hard on a daily basis. He put in the work and you’re going to see the results. Today was a first step for him but I like what I saw and he’s going to continue to work. That’s not going to change. “
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
