Through the first few games of the season, Mike Brown is quickly learning that when Mitchell Robinson doesn’t play, the New York Knicks’ frontcourt depth gets pretty brutal, pretty fast. It’s a lesson Tom Thibodeau knew all too well during his time as the head coach in New York. But now, it’s Brown’s problem.
Karl-Anthony Towns is obviously the star in the frontcourt for the Knicks, but outside of Robinson, they don’t have many guys capable of backing him up. Guerschon Yabusele is fine, but he’s not enough. New York ended up starting Ariel Hukporti on Opening Night when Towns was out.
That’s tough.
How bad is Knicks’ frontcourt depth?
Without Robinson in the lineup, the Knicks have had to rely on a bunch of guys who shouldn’t have to be big-minute players for them. Yabusele is a nice depth piece, but if he has to play 25 minutes a night, it’s not ideal.
The same goes for Hukporti. He’s a fine young player whom the Knicks should continue to develop, but having to use him as a starter in the season opener is certainly less than ideal.
Just last season, Thibodeau ran into similar depth problems. He was forced to use Precious Achiwa for longer stints than he probably would have liked. Now, Aciuwa isn’t even on an NBA roster.
Brown has been dealing with the lack of great big-man depth in his own way: Not playing much big-man depth. Through the Knicks’ first three games of the season, no bigs outside of Towns have earned much playing time.
Yabusele is only averaging 13.7 minutes per contest, Hukporti has played just 14.1 minutes per game (appearing in only two of the three games), and Trey Jemison III played 7.7 minutes in a single appearance.
All the while, Towns is getting a ton of burn for the Knicks, which makes plenty of sense. He’s playing 33.3 minutes per contest (which is still less than the 35.0 minutes per game he averaged last year under Thibodeau).
New York had all summer to find an adequate solution to this issue. Robinson isn’t even technically hurt right now. He’s load managing, which is a ridiculous concept that began on Opening Night.
Instead, they signed Yabusele and prioritized adding talent to the other parts of the roster. Now, Brown is left to figure things out and patch together a center rotation behind Towns while Robinson is sidelined (however long that may be).