NY Knicks: 3 players Frank Ntilikina should mold his game after

Frank Ntilikina can learn from Andre Iguodala

Andre ‘Iggy’ Iguodala is a player most fans are familiar with. The 2014-2015 NBA Finals MVP had some high scoring days in his early career, but as a career 12 ppg scorer, defense is where Iggy made his reputation known. In his Philadelphia days, he was a 15 ppg scorer and looked the part of a two-way force that even made an All Star appearance his last year with the team. While I don’t think Frank will ever get to that level, he can take a page out of Iggy’s late career and become an elite on-ball defender who wrecks havoc on the other team’s best player.

Even though Stephen Curry averaged 28 ppg game in the 2014-2015 finals, it was Iguodala who came away with the finals MVP, while only scoring 10 ppg. Defense can be valuable too! What Iggy learned as his career aged is that even though he could no longer be a high-level scorer, he could make a difference on the other side of the court. He decided to put his effort into taking on the challenge of guarding the opposing team’s best player and that became an extremely valuable contribution to his team.

While Iggy took on the task of shutting down Lebron, this allowed Steph to conserve energy on defense so he could focus more on being the engine of one of the most lethal offenses in NBA history (not that Steph or Kyrie could guard each other anyway). Similary to Iggy, Frank can use his length and height to matchup with any position 1-3 and take on the task of putting all his energy into stopping that player. This allows more prominent scores, such as RJ and Randle, to focus on the offensive end (not that Randle isn’t doing this already) and score more efficiently.