Guerschon Yabusele was supposed to outfit the New York Knicks with the league’s biggest bargain of the offseason. Spoiler alert: He hasn’t.
But Landry Shamet has.
After entering training camp on a non-guaranteed deal, seemingly battling for one of the Knicks’ final roster spots, the 28-year-old isn’t just earning his keep. He has become one of the team’s most important players. Period.
From getting crunch-time minutes to flame-throwing from beyond the arc to battling through screens and just generally busting his butt on defense, Shamet is a skeleton key helping unlock the best possible version of this team. And his place on the bang-for-buck scale isn’t just elite. It holds up against every other minimum signing.
Landry Shamet is having a bonkers season
Shamet is currently averaging over 16 points and eight three-point attempts per 36 minutes, with an effective field-goal percentage above 60.9. The only other players crossing the 15-8-60 threshold this season are Sam Merrill, and Kon Knueppel.
This is absurd. Knueppel is a top-four pick. Merrill is a former highway-robbery candidate in the first season of a well-deserved four-year, $38 million contract. Shamet is…earning the league’s minimum, and his deal wasn't even guaranteed until January.
More important still, the Knicks have not shied from leaning on Shamet on the defensive end. He isn’t tasked with shutting down megastars, but has emerged as one of their best options at the point-of-attack, as well as perhaps their scrappiest screen navigator. He ranks in the 70th percentile of the amount of time he spends chasing primary ball-handlers, according to BBall Index.
Good luck finding another team that gets all of this from a veteran’s minimum slot.
Josh Okogie is rivaling Shamet’s impact, particularly when factoring in minutes played. But he doesn’t provide the same degree of shooting. Tim Hardaway Jr. doesn’t ferry enough defensive responsibility.
Collin Gillespie probably has the strongest possible case, because his offensive workload is much heavier. But if there’s a list of better offseason bargains than Shamet, it’s not particularly long.
The Knicks got incredibly lucky they kept Landry Shamet
There may be an alternate universe in which Malcolm Brogdon never retires, and New York passes on bringing back Shamet. Fortunately for the Knicks, they’re not living in it.
Re-signing Shamet wasn’t just huge for this season. It’s pivotal for next year—and beyond, too. They will now have Shamet’s Early Bird rights when he enters free agency this summer, allowing them to offer him a raise worth up to 140 percent of the Association’s average salary.
It shouldn’t take that much to keep him, and there’s no telling how the front office will approach the team’s proximity to the second apron. But having the flexibility to offer him more than other suitors—which he will certainly have—is a massive deal for a franchise facing all sorts of roster-building restrictions.
That’s a matter for another day, though. For now, as the Knicks struggle to find a new home for the bargain-who-wasn’t, they can breathe easy knowing they ended up with the steal of the summer anyway.