Without Kevin Knox due to a sprained ankle, who do the New York Knicks have to replace him?
Injuries are inevitable in basketball, and that became the case for the New York Knicks on Saturday, even three games into the 2018-19 season. They lost Kevin Knox to a sprained left ankle. X-Rays were negative, but there’s no official timetable for his return.
Whether Knox misses one, two, five or 10 games or more, someone must replace his role in head coach David Fizdale’s rotation as the main scorer off the bench.
Options exist for this, even if they aren’t clear-cut. Who stands out for this spot for Monday’s game and beyond?
4. Courtney Lee
Since September’s training camp, Courtney Lee has acted as the forgotten man on the New York Knicks. He was involved in trade rumors before the team took the court, not made an ideal candidate to start in Fizdale’s positionless basketball and injured his neck.
Lee missed all five preseason games and the first three regular-season matchups with this neck ailment. The team never announced a timetable for his return, but with Knox’s injury, will there be a sense of urgency?
Lee, at 6-foot-5, doesn’t offer the size and frame of Knox at 6-foot-9. Though, the former is a veteran presence at both ends of the floor, given the production the Knicks received since 2016.
Without the “positionless” attribute, Lee’s flexibility is limited in lineup combinations, unlike Knox. That hampers his chance at the sixth man role and makes somewhere lower on the totem pole likelier.
The 33-year-old remains one of New York’s more interesting scorers, however, from behind the arc and at least puts him into the conversation; that may not last for long, but he’s an option for a chunk of playing time whenever the organization deems the Western Kentucky product fit.