Get ready to read “load management” and “Mitchell Robinson” in the same sentence a lot this year. The New York Knicks clearly aren’t going to mess around with the health of their big man—an approach that could cost them in the regular season, but is the best chance they have of winning the whole darn thing.
Fans and pundits alike entered training camp wanting to know two things about Robinson: Would he start alongside Karl-Anthony Towns? And would there be a rest program in place?
The preseason hasn’t even ended yet, and we already have our answers.
Robinson is almost definitely going to start, and he is without question going to receive plenty of rest days.
It’s only preseason and the Knicks already have Robinson in bubble wrap
Robinson has so far missed one game and two practices due to what the Knicks are calling “load management.” As Ian Begley of SNY notes, they may also hold him out of the team’s preseason finale, for reasons that amount to an abundance of caution.
This is the right call. Robinson missed all but 17 regular-season games last year while recovering from ankle surgery. Before that, he was hardly a billboard for durability.
Over the past five years, out of a possible 400 regular-season games, Robinson has appeared in 210 of them. That comes out to 52.5 percent—bareley half of the team’s matchups. And that’s a problem.
The Knicks can ill afford to navigate long pockets of time without Robinson, particularly in the playoffs. Though the offense will be fine, he is the skeleton key to their defense.
Towns provides very little resistance as a rim protector, and Robinson covers up not only for him, but he makes life easier on Mikal Bridges, whose defense no longer suddenly lives and dies with his screen navigation when Mitch is behind him. Even if he’s not starting, Robinson is a defensive tone-setter, and anchor.
Resting Mitch could cost the Knicks wins, but so be it
The true impact of resting Robinson on one end of back-to-backs, with some other absences sprinkled in between, isn’t yet known. New York has Towns, Guerschon Yabusele, and Ariel Hukporti to work with in the frontcourt. That is more than enough to get by at the center spot, albeit life could be shaky on defense.
Still, head coach Mike Brown will now be saddled with constantly shuffling his rotation. He will have to change up the starting five semi-regularly, and the bench minutes could be impacted as a result.
Do we suddenly see more of Deuce McBride with the starters on those nights? Maybe Yabusele? Will he prioritize continuity on the bench and start Hukporti, or whichever of Landry Shamet and Garrison Mathews makes the final roster?
Time will tell. But these are necessary logistical hurdles for the Knicks to clear. The urgency to keep Robinson healthy increases, infinitely, when you consider New York will be asking him to play faster when he’s on the floor as well.
Getting plenty of regular-season reps with him is of course the goal. Ensuring he’s healthy and able for next spring’s title push, though, is the bigger priority—and the Knicks clearly know it.