Knicks: 3 reasons they MUST diminish Elfrid Payton’s role

Knicks: Lack of floor-spacing has been detrimental to the offense

There aren’t many starting NBA point guards who are a complete non-factor as 3-point shooters. Among the 28 qualified starting point guards this season, the only player who is a worse 3-point shooter than Payton is Ben Simmons, who is an all-world passer and defender.

The Knicks roster isn’t a great shooting team. The team prefers to bully people in the paint, which is a fine approach for the roster that they have, but they still need options on the perimeter to kick it out.

Bullock is a solid shooter, and Barrett is below average. Thibodeau’s reasons for having these three players on the court together for the majority of the game simply can’t be enough to justify it. Defenses can just clog the paint.

Again, you can make it as an NBA guard who can’t shoot, you just need to be elite in other areas of the game to have a significant role. Some Payton defenders will point to his ability to attack the rim. His finish-rate at the rim ranks 17th out of 25 qualified point guards, which is below average. Even if Payton is scoring, it once again is not enough to neutralize his overall negative impact on his teammates.

You can point to the fact that in the Knicks’ last game, he was the team’s 2nd leading scorer with 20 points (On 19 shots), but those are just empty stats. In that same game, Payton had the worst net rating of anyone on the team: He was a -22.

Payton’s negative influence on his team’s offensive performance is even more frustrating due to the fact that the Knicks seem to already have guards on their roster who can make more of an impact.