Malcolm Brogdon’s sudden retirement has left the New York Knicks to experiment with different secondary backcourts. It’s a mission that will include lots of trial-and-error—and perhaps plenty of minutes with Jalen Brunson playing beside Jordan Clarkson.
Head coach Mike Brown started both guards in the team’s preseason finale against the Charlotte Hornets. Granted, the Knicks were incredibly shorthanded. OG Anunoby, Josh Hart, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Mitchell Robinson all missed the game. But Brown’s starting five offered insight into how he wants to run the rotation, and who he values most coming off the bench.
Deuce McBride continued to come off the pine. The implication here is that New York wants his shooting and defense to orbit whomever they task with running the second unit.
Clarkson getting the start, meanwhile, suggests that Brown may give him extra run alongside Brunson in tertiary combinations. This could be a vote of confidence in Tyler Kolek running the second unit. It might be an admission that Brown doesn’t want Clarkson soaking up on-ball reps from Towns or Mikal Bridges when they’re running with bench mobs.
Playing Brunson and Clarkson together could just be a blip, something random borne out of preseason circumstances that we hardly ever see when games matter. On the flip side, it could also be a duo that drives New York’s vision for Brunson’s offensive role.
Why the Clarkson-Brunson backcourt could be worth exploring
Brown has been adamant about getting Brunson more work off the ball, or at least giving him a break from working on it. The shift is already in effect. Brunson is taking more threes, and a lot more of those triples are coming off assists compared to last year.
Still, displacing The Captain from the rock requires having enough creators around him. New York is thinner on those following Brogdon’s surprise retirement. His exit throws the backup-playmaking rotation into chaos, while also leaving the Knicks down one player who could come in and log spot minutes alongside Brunson.
McBride can and should get reps beside JB for sooooo many reasons. But he’s not a ball-handler. While Kolek can fill this role, he’s a relative non-threat away from the ball. Dual-playmaker combinations shouldn’t displace Brunson from the rock the entire time.
Clarkson could straddle both ends of the spectrum. He prefers to dance on the ball, but even when his efficiency waxes and wanes, defenses will respect him off it. And though he’s not super huge, he does offer a touch more size than Kolek.
The Knicks have to be careful with this combination
With all of this said, the Knicks have to be meticulous about when and how they roll out a Clarkson-Brunson backcourt.
The defense from this duo will be nonexistent. That makes playing them alongside Towns a non-starter. At the bare minimum, they shouldn’t be played together on the unavoidable nights in which Mitchell Robinson won’t be available. At least one of Anunoby and Bridges should be in the game as well.
Given the ultra-specific parameters in which would work best, the Brunson-Clarkson dyad may not be one the Knicks deploy on even a semi-regular basis. And if it cuts into reps McBride gets with starters, it should be cast aside and forgotten.
This is nevertheless yet another rotation wrinkle that’s worth tracking. New York wants to change up Brunson’s usage. The path to doing that is trickier with Brogdon gone, and gets even harder if it’s not willing to keep testing out a JB-Clarkson pairing.