Julius Randle, Nerlens Noel and the fall of the New York Knicks

New York’s 2020-21 season failed to bring home a championship or even a playoff series victory. But the regular-season success was a warm shock to the long-disappointed Madison Square Garden faithful.

Tom Thibodeau arrived to whip a bunch of fringe-rotation players into one of the best defenses in the nation. Julius Randle emerged out of nowhere with a career year and an All-NBA selection. The Knicks shot the 3-pointer at the third-highest percentage in the entire NBA. They earned homecourt advantage in the first round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs. The 2020-21 Knicks were good!

But now 75% of the way through the current 2021-22 season, last year’s success story is a distant memory. New York is 11 games below .500 and nearly out of the play-in race for good. So, what caused such an abrupt change in the Big Apple? Let’s address the downfall step by step as best we can.

Hot shooting offense cools down

Even with Randle’s breakout as a focal point-forward averaging 24.1 points, 10.2 rebounds and six assists, and the rest of the team shooting lights-out, the Knicks were never great on the offensive side of the ball a season go. Their only means of scoring in the halfcourt were Randle isolations or spot-up three-pointers. Without other dynamic playmaking options, buckets can be hard to come by. However, Randle’s immaculate season and the shooting kept New York afloat as a stellar defense carried them.

This season though, the mediocre offense fell off a cliff and into the bottom of the canyon, chiefly by adding Evan Fournier and Kemba Walker while Randle’s numbers dropped across the board. Fournier and Walker are theoretically two knockdown shooters and productive offensive players throughout their careers, right? Wrong, at least in New York. Neither Fournier nor Walker shoot the ball better than the 2020-21 Knicks from inside or outside the arc.

Remember how the Knicks were the third-best three-point shooting team last season? Well, their five best shooters all made between 40-42% of their three-point attempts.

Player (2020-21)	3PM	3PA	3P%
Julius Randle	2.3	5.5	41.1%
RJ Barrett	1.7	4.3	40.1%
Reggie Bullock	2.5	6.1	41.0%
Derrick Rose	1.1	2.5	41.1%
Alec Burks	2.1	5.0	41.5%

This season, Randle and Barrett saw their percentages from deep drop sharply as Bullock and Rose were replaced essentially by Fournier and Walker, who barely shoot 40% from the field as a duo.

Further on the point of Derrick Rose. His absence due to injury has been a massive blow this season. When New York acquired him last March, they took off heading into the postseason. Following Rose’s arrival, New York was 18th in offense after spending most of the season in the bottom five, and their net rating ranked fifth in the entire NBA for the rest of the regular season. Rose was that secondary spark that could create his own offense to alleviate Randle and help create even more opportunities for New York’s cast of shooters.

An unsually poor Thibodeau defense

The Knicks achieved a 41-31 record last season on the back of their defense. With a sub-average scoring output, they had to play desperate on defense. Throughout his coaching career, that’s how Tom Thibodeau’s teams typically play on that end of the court. In his first year as head coach in The Garden, New York posted the fourth-best defense in the NBA per defensive rating. But this season, the Knicks are middle of the pack at 17th. Between the fun, overachieving team of 2021 and the losing, less-enthusiastic 2022 group, that is the real difference.

2021 was marginally better at scoring, but that team defended their tails off. So, what happened?

For starters, they held opponents to the lowest 3-point percentage of any team in the NBA. In a shooter’s league, New York prevented made 3s better than anyone. Part of that stat is a credit to their defensive efforts. They closed out hard on shooters and were an energetic defensive group all year that rarely allowed open looks. They were also lucky — 3-point shooting is often fickle and volatile from year to year.

Nerlens Noel anchored that fourth-ranked defense last season, and I pined for his Defensive Player of the Year candidacy throughout the season. That wasn’t schtick. Statistically and definitely by the eye-test, Noel defended at the center position as well as Rudy Gobert and Anthony Davis when he was on the court.

In my season review of Noel, I noted that he “was third in the NBA in total blocks (141) and blocks per game (2.2), and was second in block% (8.7), which measures the percentage of opponent shots a player blocks while in the game. He was third in Defensive Win Shares (3.6), second in Defensive Rating (101.2), and he led the NBA in Defensive Box Plus/Minus.” Elite defender.

Also, let’s circle back to the Walker and Fournier additions. Not worth their deals offensively and have never defended well in the NBA. Flat out, they are really poor defenders, especially Walker. So with Noel missing more than half of New York’s games, Fournier and Walker replacing strong perimeter defenders in Elfrid Payton and Reggie Bullock from last season, along with improved shooting from their opponents…New York regressed to the mean on defense.

Looking at the Big Picture

I really don’t know where this team goes. Back to the draft, I guess? Aside from last year’s lightning in a bottle, this franchise had little direction in terms of contending. Maybe Julius Randle bounces back with a better season in 2022-23, but even so, the depth of their rotation was New York’s strength a year ago. That depth is gone and its replacements have been missed.

Seems like a coaching change could be in order. Perhaps an entire roster shakeup is a more necessary action. The team overachieved in 2021 and is playing at the level of their talent in 2022.