New York Knicks: Player grades through first 1/4 of the season
By Adam Kester
New York Knicks Player Grades: RJ Barrett — D
It pains me to write something like this, but we have to be real. RJ Barrett hasn’t been struggling, he’s been one of the worst starters in the league so far this season.
The craziest part about this horrendous stretch of play is that it’s coming after a game on November 1st that felt like RJ Barrett’s true coming-out party. Barrett had a career-high 35 points in that game and it wasn’t just the totals — He took over the game down the stretch, calling for the ball, making plays, and hitting dagger after dagger off the dribble in the 4th quarter.
Since then, it’s been a real struggle.
In 15 games in November (Almost 1/5 of the season) RJ Barrett averaged 12.8 points on 36.8% from the field, 29.2% from 3, and 67.4% from the free throw line.
Those are unacceptable numbers and there aren’t excuses. I think that I, like many people, thought there wouldn’t be much of a statistical jump in RJ Barrett’s per-game totals but that he would still show improvements in other areas of the game while still playing at the level he did last season.
He’s New York Knicks fans’ baby, the prince of the city, and it’s hard to criticize him, but we have to take the blue and orange colored glasses off for a minute and call it for what it is.
Low-efficiency numbers in a limited role. Being a non-factor multiple times a week.
There are plenty of players within his draft class playing on teams of a similar level to the Knicks, with a similar amount of veterans in high-usage roles.
I’m not talking about Zion Williamson and Ja Morant. Tyler Herro, Darius Garland, Jordan Poole — They’re all a step ahead of Barrett right now.
Even the defense, which has had great moments against some big players, hasn’t been nearly as consistent as many fans would like to believe.
Defensive box +/-, which is one of the better defensive metrics for singling out good defenders regardless of team defense (The current top 5 is Jokic, Antetokounmpo, Draymond Green, Jimmy Butler, and Alex Caruso) has RJ Barrett 174th out of 192 qualified players.
So here’s the good news: It’s only up from here.
RJ Barrett needs to settle back into his role as a good complimentary player and get his shooting numbers back up. He’s still important for the Knicks’ success and I think we can agree that it’s just a matter of time before the RJ Barrett from last season comes back to the court.