NY Knicks: Ranking the young core among other NBA teams
By James Ryder
The New York Knicks are out of the playoffs and will once again be heading to the lottery. Thankfully though, the team is going into the offseason with a lot of players on the roster who have the potential to provide a bright future for seasons to come.
Recently, SNY’s David Vertsberger came out with an article titled, “How the Knicks’ young core compares to the rest of the NBA.” Vertsberger briefly mentioned as many as 16 teams, New York included, and named each player that would count towards such a group.
For the Knicks’ youngsters, he listed RJ Barrett, Quentin Grimes, Miles McBride, Rokas Jokubaitis, Jericho Sims, Obi Toppin, Immanuel Quickley, Mitchell Robinson, and Cam Reddish. That’s a lot of players, and they certainly have all looked like they have promise going forward with the franchise both as individual talents and as contributors to winning team basketball.
Vertsberger didn’t forget anyone. However, he did make one mistake in my opinion; naming New York as “just outside the top 10” in his estimation.
I will admit, the NBA is much more evenly spread out with exciting young players than I had assumed before reading his article. And yet still, I believe that the Knicks can stake to claim being among the top-10.
Not only will I be making that case in this article, but I will also be ranking the 10 young cores I think are the leagues’ best.
Vertsberger didn’t go into specific detail with any teams or players aside from New York, so I’ll be doing that as well. And like Vertsberger, I won’t be considering any contending teams. So, let us begin by looking at the bottom five.