NY Knicks: Immanuel Quickley shines — what is his potential?
By Adam Kester
NY Knicks: Is Immanuel Quickley a point guard?
Who cares. No seriously, this conversation is getting silly.
With the amount of high-end point guards in the league today, and with how horrendous the Knicks’ point guard situation has been in recent years, there seems to be a longing, a beckoning, a desperate plea that is intrenched in NY Knicks fans minds that they need their “point guard of the future” to succeed.
Quickley, who played point guard in high school but was more of a 2-guard in college, came into league with the “tweener guard” label. It’s a label that I’ve noticed has cursed some young players’ draft stocks and lingers with them into the NBA.
Just looking at some guards from the recent 2021 draft: Cam Thomas, Bones Hyland, Davion Mitchell, Jared Butler — so many guys having this “are they a point guard or a shooting guard?” conversation that shrouds them in confusion, and it’s conversation that more often than not has a negative connotation to it. It causes people to lose sight of the simple question… “are they good at basketball?”
The “tweener” label needs to be modified to have a more positive meaning. Really, it’s a scoring guard with some point guard skills. It’s a combo guard. That’s Immanuel Quickley.
From what I’ve seen in his rookie season, I do believe Immanuel Quickley is a good passer who has some point guard skills. He’s calm with the ball in his hands, good at keeping his dribble, can operate a pick and roll, and he can make some nice 1-handed whip passes.
Physically, there are some things that do limit him: His strength, and straight line speed aren’t exceptional, so it can be hard for him to find space when driving on tough defenders.
Quickley does look for his shot a lot, but that’s ok, so does James Harden, Stephen Curry, and Damian Lillard.
It’s unfair to compare Quickley to those players, but it’s also unfair to limit his ceiling as a “spark-plug bench scorer”. You know who wasn’t a “point guard” and was a great spark-plug off the bench in his rookie year? James Harden.
So who are some high-end players that Quickley could replicate in his NBA career?