Knicks: Will Kristaps Porzingis deliver New York a lottery pick?

Why a unique 2020-21 schedule could present an opportunity for the New York Knicks.

This NBA season is going to be one of the most challenging, especially for last season’s playoff teams. The offseason was shorter and there will be more back-to-back games in order to fit a 72-game schedule before the start of the summer Olympics.

These unexpected and unusual circumstances might actually help the New York Knicks, but not from a competitive advantage standpoint. But in terms of asset valuation. It might provide the Knicks the most sought after scenario in the NBA: rebuilding without needing to tank; fielding a competitive young team while outsourcing the improvement of your lottery odds.

Opportunity for the Knicks

How is that possible?

It is thanks to the Kristaps Porzingis (KP) trade. That’s right, the Knicks own Dallas’s unprotected first round pick in next year’s draft. The 2021 draft, unlike this year’s, is expected to be one of the best in recent years.

Dallas is a young and upcoming team that made the playoffs in the bubble and has one of the best young players in the game in Luka Doncic, so they shouldn’t be in the lottery. That might be true, but the Western Conference is unforgiving, the margin for error is razor thin.

Let’s not forget about Portland, they made the Western Conference Finals in 2019 led by one of the best players in the game, Damian Lillard. They then fell to below .500 the following season due to injuries.

Dallas was the 7th seed last season with a 57% winning percentage. But last season was a down year for the conference, and if you look at it compared to past seasons, that winning percentage gets you an 8th seed.

The West is the best

This season the Western Conference will be even more competitive as there might only be one team tanking, the Thunder, and that is not a sure bet. All seven teams that missed the playoffs are expected to be better. Also, Portland, the 8th seed last season, is expected to be better in 2020-21. So you have the eight teams that finished below Dallas getting better and only one team that finished ahead of them getting worse.

Phoenix appears to be a lock to make it back to the playoffs with the acquisition of Chris Paul. Memphis is a young and exciting team that should be much better with Ja Morant entering his 2nd season and Jared Jackson Jr. entering his 3rd. Then there is New Orleans who will have a full year of Zion Williamson. And let’s not forget about Golden State. While Klay Thompson will miss the season, they will be better. They get a full season of Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins playing together and also acquired Kelly Oubre and drafted James Wiseman.

Broken Unicorn

Dallas’s second best player, KP, is already slated to miss the start of the season as he is still recovering from knee surgery. Once he returns, there will be the extra back-to-back games which you assume will result in some DNPs for load management in order to protect his knees.

Aside from that, KP is  just an injury risk. He has never missed less than ten games in a season. Last season, he missed 15 of the 75 regular games after being out 18 months recovering from a torn ACL. Even after the 4-month layoff due to COVID-19, he still got hurt and even missed some playoff games due to a knee injury that required surgery.

As for their best player, Luka Doncic, he missed 10 games in his rookie season and 14 in his sophomore one. Remember that Dallas runs a heliocentric offense, which means that everything is reliant on Doncic. If Luka is out for a similar amount of games, or more, and his absence overlaps with a KP injury stint, then results could be disastrous.

Let’s also not forget that their center Dwight Powell is coming off a torn Achilles tendon, he might not be the same player. That is why the Mavericks are relying on Willy Cauley-Stein to anchor the middle.

What does Vegas think about the Mavericks?

Teams in the West will likely need a 57% winning percentage to qualify for the playoffs, that is a 41-31 record. While some odds makers predict Dallas will win just that, 41.5 games, they could easily fall to a 38-34 record, even with the benefit of good health because the Western Conference is just that tough. We are not even taking into account the impact of COVID-19 which is a major wildcard.

Knicks overdue for lottery luck

I am not wishing anything bad on the Mavericks, but it usually takes some unexpected luck for a team to propel themselves above the competition. The best case scenario for the Knicks is that they have a competitive season, but stay in lottery and have Dallas slip into lottery as well. That would give the Knicks two shots at Cade Cunningham or some other stud from the class of 2021.

We have seen it happen for the Celtics and the Lakers. Hopefully this time it will happen for the Knicks.