NY Knicks: The Meteoric Rise of RJ Barrett

RJ Barrett has become a reliable shooter for the NY Knicks.

Since that rough December start, RJ Barrett has simply been fantastic.

He’s shown improvement in just about every aspect of his game, most notably his 3-point shooting. His scoring efficiency is greatly improved from a year ago where he shot just 40% from the field and 61% from the charity stripe.

Here are his season statistics to date:

• 17.5 points (on 44.8% from the field, 34.4% from 3 and 73.2% from the FT line);
• 3.0 assists, 6.2 rebounds, and 0.7 steals per game.

RJ has really embraced and grown into his role as the second scoring option behind All-Star Julius Randle, and the Knicks, who rank third to last in the league in scoring, desperately need his offensive contributions.

If we were to exclude his poor shooting stats from the 5 December games earlier this season we would get a further illustration of RJ’s improved scoring efficiency – 46.2% from the field, 38.5% from three, including 48.5% from the left corner – which by the way would rank 11th in the league for players that have taken at least 30 attempts from that spot per NBA stats.

Not bad at all, he’s developing a real confidence from deep and is shooting it without hesitation.

Just see below:

While Barrett doesn’t really shoot the three at a high volume – 3.4 attempts per game – it’s still an important area of his game that he has to keep working on.

As defenders begin to pay RJ more respect behind the three-point line, the opportunities inside the arc will begin to open up for him further, which is where he can really take advantage of his biggest attribute – his strength – I’ll touch on this a bit more on the next slide.

First, an example of how his improved three-point shot opens up the offense for him:

• On this play, Middleton respects RJ as a threat from deep and bites on the fake/hesitation move allowing Barrett to blow by him for the slam. Middleton is no slouch on defense and while this wasn’t his greatest effort, it still demonstrates the extent to which defenders are beginning to respect RJ’s three-ball. Neat