NY Knicks: A Way Too Early Prediction of NY’s Small Forward Depth chart

Should RJ Barrett be the starting SF for the NY Knicks?

I think we as fans all expect RJ Barrett to take a massive leap this season.

With that expected leap, he’ll likely be tasked with more responsibilities on both sides of the ball this year.

I anticipate Year 3 to be something special for all of us to watch.

We’ve already witnessed a huge leap from his rookie season to his sophomore campaign, and knowing what we know about RJ, he’s been in the lab working on how to get even better.

After what most would consider being a subpar year out of the #3 overall selection in 2019, RJ was snubbed from the All-Rookie teams…unjustly so.

It wasn’t the best year and I’m sure RJ would admit to that himself, but some of the guys that were selected over him each recently got traded for just a single 2nd round pick within the past 6 months.

We’ve all grown accustomed to the RJ slander, most notably when he was left off a recent ‘Top 125 Players’ list by The Athletic.

My co-editor Adam Kester made sure to defend RJ to the utmost.

Now, in regards to the positional fit, I do believe we’ll see a similar strategy used as we did last year where depending on the matchup, we’ll see Fournier and RJ swap between the shooting guard and small forward spots.

Since RJ is more familiar with the system and is a much better perimeter defender, I think we’ll see more of RJ at the 3 than Fournier.

RJ at the 3 should mean tougher defensive matchups and more responsibility as he’ll likey be the team’s best wing defender on a nightly basis.