The New York Knicks are repeating their 3-point efficiency
As mentioned earlier, the Knicks did a great job of making their three point shots last season.
Despite seeing such positive progress though, the team avoided shooting a high volume of those shots. This was undoubtedly one of the biggest reasons as to why New York struggled to score enough points on a nightly basis. Thankfully, the team is choosing to be aggressive in launching three pointers this season.
And why shouldn’t they be? New York’s success wasn’t the result of just a handful of players shooting a ridiculous percentage and inflating a couple of other players’ league average percentages. The Knicks truly deploy several talented shooters.
They had multiple players shoot above league average last year, and more specifically, five different Knicks shot 40% or better from deep. Those players were Julius Randle (41.1%), RJ Barrett (40.1%), Derrick Rose (41.1%), Alec Burks (41.5%) and Reggie Bullock (41.0%).
All of those guys are with the team again this season except for Bullock and so far each of them have once again shot very well.
Additionally, Immanuel Quickley was arguably the teams greatest shooter in 2020-21. Quickley shot 39% on 4.7 attempts per game. In fact, the only Knick rotation players with poor 3-Point efficiency last year were Obi Toppin (30.6%) and Elfrid Payton (28.6%), the latter of whom was replaced by Kemba Walker .
This is all important to understand because it proves that there was a large sample size, a full seasons worth at that, in which this team proved they can be great at shooting three’s. Combine the teams ability to replicate that efficiency with the fact that two more good shooters in Walker and Evan Fournier are now in the mix, and you can confidently assume New York will remain one of the league’s top sniping teams.