The NBA preseason is a great way to evaluate the talent that you have, especially if you have a young team like the New York Knicks. Things didn’t seem to start off very well as head coach Jeff Hornacek decided to start Doug McDermott at small forward, while Courtney Lee, who is due $11,000,000 this year, came off the bench. Lee would end up with a solid 12 points and 4 steals, while McDermott had 9 points and a assist.
The rest of the starters would perform solid overall including Tim Hardaway Jr. with 17 points and Kristaps Porzingis with 15. There were some bench players who stood out that could possibly earn themselves more minutes this season such as Michael Beasley, Enes Kanter, and Willy Hernangomez. Beasley and Hernangomez both put in work on the glass by each grabbing 10 rebounds, and Kanter showed his talent in the post with 17 points. Rookie Frank Ntilikina had an average performance with 5 points and 3 assists, but he’s still adjusting to the NBA environment.
As for coaching, it was easy to tell Hornacek wants to push the pace this season and run a faster offense. He also gave all active players an opportunity to play. With those opportunities he gave, he can take them away as the team decided to cut guard Jamel Artis today, who played poorly. With more preseason games to come, we’ll see how the final roster shapes out.
