The New York Knicks are treading in dangerous waters lately. The team hasn’t had a game to feel good about in quite some time. The last 3 games have been a brutal loss to an inferior Magic team, a win against the league-worst Timberwolves that they nearly blew, and an excruciatingly painful loss to the Golden State Warriors. All of these games share a common denominator — Unwatchable offense.
The Knicks’ woes on offense have popped up frequently throughout the season, and while the team’s strong defense can oftentimes be enough to mask it, it isn’t always enough. The Knicks are not going to be an elite offensive team this year, but there are certainly ways they can get better. Both the inadequate floor-spacing and lack of versatile skillsets on offense have plagued the team, and their starting point guard Elfrid Payton has been the crux of it.
I think there is a misconception among some Knicks fans and even the coaches that Payton deserves the playing time “Because of his defense” or that he’s a “Thibodeau style player”. While Payton does bring a nice level of intensity to the game, there is no reality where Payton should be playing 30+ minutes a night on an NBA team.
I want to stress that Payton belongs in the league, and his contributions on defense are deserving of a small role. However, his current high usage rate and minutes per-game have been holding the team back, and I will explain how any positive narrative you can come up with for Elfrid Payton can be debunked.
Here are 3 reasons why Elfrid Payton’s role must be diminished for the betterment of the team.
Knicks: Elfrid Payton is statistically one of the worst playmaking guards in the NBA
Elfrid Payton will have games where he gets around 4-6 assists, but make no mistake — his playmaking is lackluster. Looking at some stats from Cleaning The Glass helps to shine some light on this issue: Payton’s .83 Assist-to-usage-rate ratio ranks in the 8th percentile of NBA players. It ranks dead last among qualified point guards this season.
What this statistic tells us is how often a player records an assist given how often they had the ball. So while Payton will have his moments where he finds an open big man, his assist numbers are essentially a product of how often he has the ball, not how good of a passer he is.
You don’t need the numbers to see it. Payton simply doesn’t have the vision to make one-handed-whip passes or over-the-shoulder kick-outs. His passing abilities are limited to simply finding an open man when he gets lost in traffic.
The Knicks’ other starting guard, Reggie Bullock’s passing skillset is non-existent. So while the Knicks have capable playmakers among their starters with Randle and Barrett, they are getting nothing from their backcourt. Zero playmaking from your guards will kill an entire offense.
Payton is good at not turning the ball over — He ranks 10th/28 among qualified point guards in turnover ratio. This is probably a key reason why Thibodeau keeps him in the game for long stretches. Don’t get it twisted, simply not turning the ball over doesn’t outweigh having zero creativity.
Most of the league’s most gifted passers frequently turn the ball over – You have to take risks to generate offense, and right now, Payton and the Knicks’ offense is a low-risk black hole.
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.
The Knicks need to let Immanuel Quickley play through mistakes, grow as a player
Immanuel Quickley has undoubtedly hit a rookie wall. Immanuel Quickley is also a significant part of the Knicks’ future: He’s a rookie who is already making an impact and earlier this year looked like he was on track to make an All-Rookie Team. He needs to learn how to play through his mistakes.
Quite frankly, the idea that Payton “Deserves” more playing time than Quickley because he doesn’t turn the ball over as much, is ridiculous. Quickley doesn’t need to be a 35 minutes per-game player, but the fact that has played less than 15 minutes in multiple games is utterly ridiculous.
Once again using stats from Cleaning The Glass, Elfrid is a decent defender, but he isn’t some sort of lockdown guard. He ranks in the 51st percentile in opponent 3-point field goal percentage. His ranking when defending shots at the rim is 4th worst among point guards – He really struggles with athletic, downhill guards.
I’m not even suggesting that the Knicks make Quickley the starter. In fact, I love the yin-and-yang of the two different units. The starters set the bully-ball, defense-first tone for the game, and then the 2nd-unit comes in hot on offense. Payton being the starter and him averaging less than 20 minutes per-game don’t need to be mutually exclusive.
We’ve seen it happen oh so many times this season – Late in the game, the Knicks cannot buy a basket. They need an injection of offense, and arguably their 2nd best offensive player, Immanuel Quickley, is rotting on the bench. Thibodeau’s reluctance to read the game and change his lineups on-the-go has played a major role in the Knicks’ recent disappointing performances.
Elfrid Payton is not the sole reason the Knicks’ offense has struggled, but he has been a huge part of it. Does he deserve a role with the team? Absolutely, but there is no argument as to why Payton should be playing sky-high heavy minutes with such a high usage rate. The Knicks need to recognize this soon because the offense has been holding them back from truly establishing themselves as a playoff team.