The Path to Rookie of the Year

or

Lofty Expectations for a Lengthy Latvian

I want to say first of all that Porzingis has exceeded my fairly lofty expectations coming into the regular season. This kid is something special and as a Knicks fan I couldn’t be more pleased.

After putting together a pretty strong showing in Summer League and the Preseason, I still didn’t expect the kid to contribute this much so quickly. Kristaps Porzingis was receiving the Bruno treatment by Exec’s and Media prior to the regular season (2 years away from being X + ∞ years away) and even though his offensive efficiency hasn’t quite caught up to the hype, he has showcased a skill set unheard of in a 7’3” player (much less a rookie). In fact, with improvements in a handful of areas, KP has a legitimate shot at winning the Rookie of the Year award in 2016.

As it stands, KP is second only to Karl-Anthony Towns in the current Rookie of the Year race.

Through 12 games their per 36 minutes numbers are strikingly similar, with Towns having the only significant edges in 2 point shooting efficiency and 1.3 more blocks per 36. KAT also leads slightly in points, assists, and overall rebounds. Porzingis leads with more offensive rebounding, steals, 3 point % and attempts. These players really are neck and neck early in the season.

And given that Towns is perhaps already the best player on his team, this is astounding. KAT has through 12 games proven to be the best so far among a very impressive draft class but KP has a realistic shot of chasing him down. In order to win that race, KP is going to need to improve in the following key areas:

 

1. Low Shooting Efficiency

After giving an already legendary pre-draft workout  that dropped jaws for his silky stroke, KP has shot a low percentage through 12 games. With a true shooting percentage (below 50%) that is comparable to fellow Knicks rookie Jerian Grant, who is very much not a shooter, KP is underachieving on what appeared initially to be his biggest strength. There are a few key reasons I’ve seen for this so far.
For starters Kristaps is playing with a fluctuating level of confidence, which is plenty normal for a rookie. At times early in games (and quarters) he is too deferential, passing out of a lot of good looks, particularly from beyond the arc. I’m not particularly worried about this tendency, as it must be very difficult to figure out where you land in the pecking order as a rookie playing with a starting 5 of all vets, particularly when one is a score first option like Melo. That said, KP absolutely needs to take his spot up shooting chances as they come to him. He did exactly that on Tuesday against the Hornets and by doing so he made the game look easy and put up a cool 29 points with his best shooting game of the season (10-17, 2-2 from downtown).

On the flipside KP can border on over-confident with his shot selection from time to time. Notably, he attempts some shots that have an incredibly high degree of difficulty. He pulls out vintage Dirk type moves, the classic turnaround one footer off the glass type stuff from 15 feet and (a lot further) out. He made a couple of these in Summer League, but I don’t think I’ve seen him hit one since. However, he’s flashed some serious knock down skill shooting straight on from the baseline (dream shaking dudes out of the way while he’s at it). If he can keep it simple this year, his midrange % will improve.

Also hurting his efficiency is his tendency to rush his shots after an offensive rebound near the basket, as he gains more confidence and strength, he\ll get more comfortable gathering before going up strong. In the recent Pelicans game he misses 3 quick bunnies right at the hoop, which kills his field goal percentage. If he can make these shots without consistently without rushing them, his field goal percentage will get better.

Despite being seen as a 3-point sniper coming out the draft, KP has failed to make much of a dent on that end. KP’s 3-point % has been poor, shooting around 27% on 34 shots. Now, for a rookie, even one that boasts shooting chops, this isn’t as terrible as it might first appear. Dirk for example, shot just a hair above 20% his rookie season on 68 shots and is the quintessential shooting big of the modern NBA. Hell, Porzingis’ teammate Jose Calderon, who is one of the most consistently good 3 point shooters ever, shot less than 17% his rookie season.

 

All reports seem to indicate that Porzingis’ stroke is still silky smooth in practice (and it sure looks good, even when he misses), so I’m betting that his 3-point percentage will improve with better conditioning and more in game reps. One other thing of note is that KP has a very long follow through motion due to pure biomechanics (ie being 30 ft tall with a 65 ft wingspan) but he’ll get cleaner looks if he can get into his shooting motion from higher up. If he can catch the ball high and shoot without bringing it all the way down, it will open up more spot up opportunities for him. Some of this will be about his teammates adjusting their passing (I’m looking at you, Lance Thomas) to allow him to get into his shooting motion faster.
As KP continues to improve his conditioning and finds the right balance between taking more of his passed up attempts early in the action and passing or driving out of some of his higher difficulty shots, I would expect his shooting percentages to pick up significantly.

 

2. Bad Hands Leading To Live Ball Turnovers

 

There’s no good way to say it. Through 7 games, KP has had bad hands. He has frequently fumbled pocket passes or a entry passes into the post and a lot of these have resulted in live ball turnovers that the Knicks have zero chance to defend. Some of these, its clear, are the result of the very-much-still-developing chemistry on this very-much-still-developing Knicks squad. He’s missed some nice dishes from Jerian Grant on the roll and he committed some key turnovers down the stretch against the Bucks on November 6th that put the game out of reach.  Again some of this is team chemistry, but some of this is on KP too. Now, his turnovers haven’t been exceptionally high for a rookie, but a lot his fumbles haven’t lead directly to credited turnovers. He’s still looked shaky getting those passes into the post, which has led to some hesitation from his teammates to get him the ball there quickly in a set, which in turn has resulted in some ugly Hey-Over-Here-Telgraphed passes that have resulted in opponent steals and fast breaks.

This is really just a matter of practice as the kid is clearly highly coordinated (despite his alien like frame) but for now it’s something he needs to work on. Improvement in this area will also bolster his already impressive rebound rate, which ranks among best in the league in offensive rebounds ( was 7^th, now 19th  **See Footnote**).

 

3. Foul Trouble, Early And Often

 

And now onto the most popular of all recent Kristaps related topics: Fouls. With a staggering 6.8 fouls per 36 minutes through 7 games, KP had been struggling to stay on the floor. People on message boards and particularly over on P&T have laid a lot of the blame on the NYK back court which is allowing an ungodly amount of dribble penetration that KP is having to clean up. To his credit KP himself has owned sole responsibility, and this report by Chris Herring of the Wall Street Journal citing Sport VU footage seems to vindicate the Knicks guards (well, of this particular sin, in any case). So it seems to be on the kid himself, and that’s ok – rookies foul a lot, rookie big men more than anyone else. He’s definitely committed a few fouls in frustration when executing a bad defensive play, turnover or due to overreaching.

This is a real issue, but it’s exacerbated by one of the great remaining inefficiencies in the NBA today, namely “Personal Foul Mismanagement”.

I’m intending to draw out a larger piece on this topic, but in my eyes the poor management of personal foul troubles seems to be one of the few remaining great uncharted (at least publicly) domains for analytics driven teams. Porzingis has been pulled early in the 1^st quarter a few times already, and has sat long periods during games at critical moments.

Yet despite KP’s foul trouble, he has yet to actually foul out of a single game – so he is missing potentially large swaths of game time unnecessarily. If the argument is that he’s being benched for committing stupid fouls, I’d listen to it, but that doesn’t seem to consistently be the case.  Like a lot of big players, some of the fouls called on KP have been questionable, but his benching has been done as a matter of course, indicating that it is not being done to motivate or incentivize different play.

In his last few games KP has managed to avoid fouling so much as to keep him out of play, and his numbers have spiked accordingly. He’s improvement has dropped his fouls down to 4.9 per 36 and given that he’s averaging around 25 minutes per game, this is a satisfactory improvement as long as he doesn’t sacrifice too much of his defensive tenacity.

 

All this in mind KP has been a revelation. I think that with better shot selection, more seasoning, better hands, further developed chemistry, and a reduction in silly fouls (and hopefully better foul management) Kristaps Porzingis will have a real shot at winning the Rookie of the Year over number 1 pick and beast of a player Karl-Anthony Towns.

And as a Knicks fan, it couldn’t feel stranger and more exciting to say that about one of our players.

Notes.

*** For perspective, Tristan Thompson was recently given an 82 million dollar contract for primarily excelling at this particular skill. At time of writing He ranks 46^th on this list by Hollinger with a rate 3% lower than KP’s.