NY Knicks: 3 reasons Kyle Lowry is a strong possibility at point guard

NY Knicks: Kyle Lowry is still a great player

In a bizarre way, New York has a gaping hole to fill at point guard with Elfrid Payton’s imminent departure. Despite his poor play and complaints from fans he still played heavy minutes as the team’s starting point guard.

Even if the team brings back Derrick Rose as their starting point guard, who fills the 6th man role that Rose excelled in last season?

We saw Rose put up terrific individual numbers in the NY Knicks’ postseason series against the Atlanta Hawks, but as a team, they struggled. It just wasn’t enough firepower.

Insert Kyle Lowry.

The NY Knicks’ biggest need is players who can comfortably handle the ball and create offense. Once the Atlanta Hawks eliminated Julius Randle, the only player who was comfortable generating their own offense was Derrick Rose.

Lowry can take on a lot of that ball-handling responsibility as both a scorer and facilitator.

As a scorer, he has always been tremendously efficient. Kyle Lowry’s points per 100 shot attempts ranked in the 84th percentile of all point guards last season. His overall shooting splits were 43.6% from the field, 39.6% from 3, and 87% from the line.

On pull-up 3-pointers, Lowry shot 37.7% on just under 4 attempts per game. He, unlike a lot of players on the NY Knicks roster, can find his own shot.

He may not have the same speed to get to the rack that he did when he was younger, but Kyle Lowry is still efficient around the rim. He finishes at a high rate and can also draw fouls at a high rate for a point guard. His 3-level scoring might be more complete than any other guard in free agency.

Of course, Kyle Lowry doesn’t need the ball in his hands to score. He’ll be a fantastic catch and shoot option for Julius Randle kick-outs – Lowry shot 41.6% on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers last season.

On top of all the fantastic shooting metrics, Lowry isn’t exactly a score-first guy. Lowry is a point guard who sets up the offense and averaged 7.3 assists last season to go with a solid assist-to-usage rate.

Really, the NY Knicks haven’t had a point guard of Lowry’s caliber in a long, long time. Even at age 35, he’s a jolt of offense and leadership that would only help the team grow.

So while Kyle Lowry lines up with the knicks timeline and fits the team like a glove, would he himself want to come to NY?