Well, Mike Brown’s pledge to stretch the New York Knicks’ rotation nine to 10 players deep didn’t last very long, did it?
After playing around 10 or 11 guys to open the season, Brown shortened the pool to nine bodies following an 0-3 roadtrip. He has winnowed down the rotation even further since. It now hovers around eight guys, and sometimes seven.
This is a stark departure from Brown’s self-stated goals upon taking the gig. In extreme contrast to Tom Thibodeau, he talked about playing 10 or more guys on a regular basis. The hollowing out of his rotation is among the (very) few disappointments for which he’s responsible.
Then again, under the circumstances, we have to ask: Is Mike Brown actually responsible?
The Knicks are dealing with injuries…and underachieving
The Knicks’ most recent minutes distribution can be (mostly) explained using one word: injuries.
Jalen Brunson is on the shelf with a right ankle sprain. (Breathe easy, Knicks fans. He is expected back soon.) OG Anunoby is going to miss at least two weeks after suffering a left hamstring strain. The Mitchell Robinson maintenance program complicates matters as well.
Because this doesn’t amount to enough curveballs, apparently, New York is also grappling with pepperings of unplayability. It’s easy to call for Guerschon Yabusele to soak up more minutes…until you actually watch Guerschon Yabusele minutes. He doesn’t even look ready to take on the sub-10-minutes-per-game role he’s assuming now.
Yabusele’s struggles could be owed in part to a lack of rhythm. It can be difficult for scorers to gain traction while playing in small, inconsistent bursts. At the same time, he is not doing himself any favors. Scant few of his stints have left anyone feeling as if he warrants a larger role.
Without Yabusele delivering the intended impact, Brown seemingly trusts three reserves: Deuce McBride, Landry Shamet, and Josh Hart. That maxes out the rotation at eight, maybe 8.5 players, on any given night. And it gets harder to sustain even that depth when you’re missing one starter, let alone two.
New York needs Brown to have more of an iron stomach
New York’s hierarchy of reliability does not absolve Brown of all the blame. He needs to do a better job of withstanding short-term pain in favor of longer-term gains.
It’s one thing to bury Yabusele when Anunoby, Robinson, and Towns are all available. It’s another thing entirely to not play him in the first half of Monday’s loss to the Miami Heat when the Knicks were missing OG.
For a brief shining moment, it looked like Brown was going to use Anunoby’s absence to test out rookie combo-wing Mohamed Diawara. The experiment lasted all of 83 seconds.
That isn’t enough. Diawara needs more latitude. The minutes might be painful, but that’s the cost of player development. And Brown may need to force-feed more Yabusele minutes, if only to confirm whether he can work out of this rut.
Nobody’s demanding Pacome Dadiet, Tyler Kolek, or Ariel Hukporti get 15-plus-minutes-per-game roles they haven’t earned. Ditto for Diawara and Yabusele. But Bridges has now cleared 39 minutes in each of the past two games, while Shamet and McBride each racked up 38-plus ticks in the loss to Miami.
Desperate times all for exceptional measures. The thing is, it’s November. These aren’t desperate times.
Instead, this is the time when Brown should be thoroughly plumbing the depths of this roster, for better or bare, to get a more complete idea of what the Knicks are working with—and more importantly, what they’re not.