Was The RJ Barrett Extension A Mistake For The New York Knicks?

The second that RJ Barrett inked his newly minted $107 million extension with the New York Knicks it started a clock. The clock was no longer going to look past the inefficiency, excuse the slow starts, or ignore the dumbfounding shots at the basket.

The clock was an indicator that Barrett needed to put together competency and consistency. This wasn’t a call for stardom, which seems a bit unrealistic. No, this was a call for a starter on the wing that would more than justify the contract.

The clock ticks on and fans are left wondering when it’ll run out and leave them with another draft pick that disappoints.

Offense

Taking a quick glance at the numbers doesn’t reflect a player that has regressed. Most of the advanced statistics for Barrett display a player that is posting relatively similar production to what he had the year prior. His true shooting figure is the only number that is above where it was last year, but his win shares, PER, and other numbers are within range from what he has done previously. Still, something feels off.

It could be an array of different things, but mostly it feels rooted in him not improving in the areas in which he attempted to focus on during the offseason. In an interview with Michael Saponara of Billboard he laid out what those three things were:

“I really worked on trying to finish better at the basket and making my free throws. Just being more consistent and that might seem small but being consistent in those will go a long way.”

It’s important to acknowledge that, indeed, Barrett has made a meaningful improvement in his free throw shooting. He’s hitting 78 percent of his 5.4 attempts per game, which is nearly eight percentage points higher than his career average. That puts him in a category above the bottom dwellers of the league who get to the line often but have a tendency to miss.

The area in which he continues to struggle is his finishing at the rim. He is hitting 57 percent of his shots at the basket, which is in the 36th percentile for players at his position. It is the 4th consecutive season in which he is floundering among the worst in the league in his efficiency at the rim, and his marks in other areas of the court are equally as porous.

The interesting part about Barrett is that the opportunities seem to reflect positive regression. The misses come from a good process in which he just barely misses his looks because of a lack of touch or an unfriendly bounce. They are, in the simplest terms, easy layups that he is missing:

He gets plenty of height above the defender where he should easily knock this through but doesn’t. The hard part is getting to that spot, not the shot itself. Yet, we find Barrett struggling in one of the easiest parts of the game. This isn’t an issue for just this season— the inability to can these types of shots are what has plagued RJ throughout his career and is one of the reasons why he made this such a focus this offseason. It’s not like all of the shots Barrett takes are this easy.

Against Charlotte the other night he showcased how his premeditated decision making curses him and leaves him without another out when he gets into the paint. It’s the same issue we see in the video above as Mitchell Robinson seemed to be open for an alley-oop, especially when considering Tim Hardaway Jr. was defending him on the play.

In this situation he has three defenders surrounding him with two others in the vicinity. Part of the issue is that two centers are on the floor in this situation (that’s a story for another day), but he clearly chooses to hoist up a poor shot rather than pass out of that situation. It’s a constant trait of Barrett that not only does he miss the “bunnies” but takes on the herculean task of hitting difficult shots when he hasn’t earned the right to do so with his play.

The last part of his summer plan was to be more consistent and that simply hasn’t happened. Once again, he started the year ice cold with a true shooting percentage of 48. That has now risen over the past two months, but his streakiness shouldn’t act as an excuse for his numbers as a whole or a qualifier for why they aren’t representative of the player that he is. The last two seasons fans and defenders have said “If you just look at his numbers from this day forward” that you could portend a future star. At a certain point the numbers from the whole season are representative of who you are as a player and it’s not painting a pretty picture for Barrett.

Defense

Two years ago he was a part of the 4th best defense in the NBA and was considered the best perimeter defender on the team.

Now? He is one of the leaky holes on a defense that continues to disappoint under the supposed wizardry of head coach Tom Thibodeau.

Over the last four games they have the best defense in the NBA but it sure isn’t because of Barrett. A mixture of shooting luck and a change in personnel among the guard rotation has made a significant difference. They still rank 17th in the league as a whole, and a large part of that has been due to Barrett.

Defensive stats are notoriously a bit wonky and unreliable, but they can still aid in telling the story. His estimated plus minus ranks among the 20th percentile in the NBA. He has bafflingly continued a downward trend in both steals and blocks as his career has continued– currently ranking in the bottom 5th percentile among wings in both statistics. His defensive rebounding is currently the worst of his career and he makes lackadaisical mistakes like this constantly.

The team is allowing 117 points per 100 possessions when he’s on the court, which would rank as the 2nd worst defense in the NBA (ahead of only the San Antonio Spurs). He ranks 176th out of 193 players in the sport in defensive box plus minus with a -1.3 rating. His defensive story is equally putrid from both the statistical and film lens.

He’s still only 22 and the deal just kicked in. There are plenty of ways for this to work out for the New York Knicks and Barrett. It’s likely he makes marginal improvements moving forward, but the likelihood he ever takes a major step to becoming a productive two-way player seems to be running out of time.