After a frustrating week, can The NY Knicks bounce back?

NY Knicks’ Newest Player: Norvel Pelle

As I briefly mentioned earlier in the piece, the Knicks signed big man Norvel Pelle to a 10-day contract as they look to add some front-court depth in the absence of Mitchell Robinson.

Who is Norvel Pelle?

Pelle is a 6’10” 231lbs F/C, who at 28 years old has yet to find his footing in the NBA after skipping college in 2013-2014 for academic reasons before going pro. At this point in his career, he has played predominately in the NBA G-League and overseas. – He holds averages of 8.8 points per game (64% FG), 6.1 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks across 86 G-League games.

He does have some NBA experience, however, having spent last season with the Philadelphia 76ers in addition to a couple of 10-day contracts with Brooklyn and Sacramento this season.

What does he bring to The NY Knicks?

Pelle brings rim protection, as his 2.3 blocks per game average in just 18.3 minutes per game in the G-League shows. If you extrapolate that out to per 36-minute figures, he’d average 4.5 blocks per game – per Basketball Reference. Not bad at all! Offensively, he is pretty limited and his main value on that end of the floor will be as a lob threat and an offensive rebounder.

He provides much-needed big man depth off the bench for the Knicks, which will be important in the absence of Mitchell Robinson.

It’s most likely that his role on the team will be limited to back up insurance for both Nerlens Noel and Taj Gibson in the case one of them were to miss time. I don’t really expect him to see regular rotation minutes, at least initially – Coach Thibodeau has labeled him as “situational”, as we’ve seen with other players listed as “situational” which essentially means he won’t be playing unless there are injuries to the other bigs.

A whirlwind debut for the Knicks’ newest big man

Pelle made his Knick debut Saturday night in the blowout victory over the Pistons and really impressed- in just 2:44 of action Pelle scored 1 point, grabbed 3 rebounds, and dislocated 1 finger before sending NY Knicks’ Twitter into a frenzy with two highlight blocks within the space of 10 seconds – his new teammates were HYPED: