3 Reasons Why the New York Knicks Should Bench Evan Fournier

Evan Fournier Has Struggled as a member of the New York Knicks

When you look at Evan Fournier’s traditional stats, it would seem that he isn’t having such a bad 2021-22 season.

However, you don’t need to dig real far below the surface to realize that not only has he truly struggled this year, but this is also arguably the worst season of his career.

So what are those traditional stats?

Fournier is averaging 13.2 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 1.8 assists while shooting a below league average 41.1 FG% but a solid 36.7 3P%.

These aren’t terrible numbers, but these are numbers that you see from a role player, not someone with the designation of being a second or third option.

Altogether, these are certainly underwhelming totals for Fournier specifically when looking at his full body of work.

Besides his rookie season when he played just 38 games and averaged only 11.3 minutes per game, this is the third lowest PPG of Fournier’s career. He averaged 8.4 PPG as a sophomore and 12 PPG in his third season.

In other words, Fournier’s scoring hasn’t been this lacking since he was a very young player.

For further context, Fournier has averaged 15 PPG in a season twice and 17.1 PPG or more 5 times. It has been almost a decade since he has scored so few points.

His efficiency is also down. Both his FG% and 3P% are below his career averages (44% and 37% respectively). This is currently the lowest FG% of Fournier’s career and he is shooting his third-lowest percentage from three of his career.

Sure, for much of his career this is a player who was a lead option, so maybe you think his numbers being down due to a slightly reduced role makes sense.

But, if those numbers are somehow not convincing enough, just take a look at his last 10 games.

Fournier had back-to-back great games versus the Houston Rockets (23 points, 8-12 shooting) and the Boston Celtics (32 points, 13-24 shooting). But, besides one other good performance on Christmas against the Atlanta Hawks (15 points, 6-12 FG%), he has put up several duds.

The worst of these 10 games was an 8 point, 2-13 outing vs the Washington Wizards three games ago.

That’s two awesome games, one good game, and seven horrible games. I’d say Fournier being a positive on offense just 30% of the time this season is a pretty accurate statement.

Clearly, Fournier can’t continue to start and play 29.2 MPG if he is going to be this ineffective. Just because he isn’t burdened with a huge scoring load every single night like he’s been in the past doesn’t excuse him from being inefficient and sometimes a complete net negative.

Now, I’ll discuss which Knicks player should be the replacement in the event of a Fournier demotion.