Knicks: 3 reasons Frank Ntilikina deserves playing time

1) How Frank Ntilikina can help the Knicks: Shooting

I’m sure I just lost some of you. How can a career 31.6% three-point shooter actually improve a team’s overall shooting? Well, first of all, Elfrid Payton is shooting 26.3% from three and that’s just a tick lower than his career average. So, he’d be an upgrade there, but this isn’t a Payton-bashing column (yet); that’s just called Knicks Twitter. Instead, I want to prove to you that, in the right situation, Frank can be a plus shooter.

The biggest part of that equation is the ever-coveted corner three where, throughout his career, Frank has been very solid. Last season, per Cleaning The Glass, Ntilikina shot ~52% on corner threes. Granted, that was on a low volume – just 14-of-27 overall. However, if you expand that sample to the entirety of his career, he’s shooting 31-of-76 on corner threes for a tidy ~41%.

That includes a perfect 1-for-1 this season so far.

Here’s the thing about the Knicks’ mostly dysfunctional offense: they actually generate a respectable number of corner threes. In fact, 9.3% of the Knicks’ total shots come from the corners which ranks 11th in the league, per Cleaning The Glass. And, New York hits 38.2% of their corner threes, roughly a league-average rate. So, you may think: We want to add a marginally better corner three-point shooter to a team that already does fine in that area? How will that possibly move the needle for our desultory offense?

First, having another player who can reliably step in and hit corner threes is a huge plus. This is not a “hat on a hat” situation. Shooting, as PD Web smartly wrote for The Strickland, is a compound skill that amplifies the shooting of everyone else on the floor.

Second, Frank is also a passable catch-and-shoot three-point shooter. Last season, he shot 33.7% on nearly 2 catch-and-shoot 3PAs per game. That’s not world-beating, but it’s better than RJ Barrett, Elfrid Payton, Immanuel Quickley and Obi Toppin so far this season. It’s also roughly the same points-per-shot value as someone who shoots 50% from two (oh no, am I starting to sound like one of those basketball snobs?). The point is, the shots that really dragged Frank’s three-point percentage down last year were his pull-up attempts. This season, in an offense that is orchestrated by guys like Randle, Barrett and Quickley, Frank can stick to his strengths and excise the pull-up attempts that drag down his efficiency.