NY Knicks: The key stats behind Immanuel Quickley’s “Elite potential”
By Adam Kester
NY Knicks’ Offense: Immanuel Quickley’s Role
The NY Knicks have boasted one of the league’s best defenses in the NBA since the opening night of the 2020-21 season. It’s been the offense that has frequently lost them games. There’s been a lot of inconsistency in the team’s offensive output throughout the season.
Tom Thibodeau’s team has tried to compensate for their lack of playmaking at point guard by divvying up those responsibilities among different players – Primarily Julius Randle, RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, Elfrid Payton, and Derrick Rose. There are plenty of point-forwards and playmaking centers in today’s NBA, so not having a “Pass-first” guard is not a death sentence. It has, however, clearly popped up as an issue with the Knicks.
Good pass here by Immanuel Quickley to see the Cavs shading him off the screen and see the open man but smart cut too by Mitchell Robinson to go downhill as soon as Quickley start his dribble. Quickley with 12 points in 11 minutes off the bench for the Knicks pic.twitter.com/sqXHVdpsBj
— Mike Vorkunov (@MikeVorkunov) January 16, 2021
A Knicks team at full health usually features Elfrid Payton playing heavy minutes at point guard. This typically hampers the ball movement on offense. With that said, not all of the blame can fall on Payton. Even with some of the outstanding performances from Derrick Rose and Immanuel Quickley, the Knicks’ point guard play from everyone has been inconsistent.
This isn’t to say Quickley can’t continue and develop his playmaking skills and potentially grow into an NBA point guard. Quickley played point guard throughout high school. However, his stats so far in the NBA show just how much more comfortable he is playing at the 2.
From Cleaning The Glass, Immanuel Quickley’s net efficiency differential (Team points scored per 100 possessions minus team points allowed per 100 possessions) is -1.4 at point guard. At shooting guard? a whopping +10.8. That kind of drastic difference jumps off of the page and makes you wonder just how high this kid could fly if he was able to play alongside a real NBA starting point guard.