This Report About RJ Barrett Is Only Going To Make Us More Jacked Up About The Knicks And Nobody Can Stop Us
First off go read Clem with his Knicks blog.
And now I'm going to take a more nuanced look and some gambling stuff. Why? Because that's how we always operate here. The Knicks are good, we have multiple Knicks fans on staff, we're bloggers. I don't make the rules, I just follow them. Quick shout out to Clem, KFC, Big Ev, Hubbs, Cheah and the rest of us Knicks fans I might be forgetting. This is the most jazzed up for a season we've been since, well, I don't know? 1995?
A main reason why? RJ Barrett. Yep, the guy who everyone wanted to make fun of after going 3rd behind Zion and Ja Morant. We're not arguing that RJ is better than Ja. That's silly. But he's starting to live up to the hype of being the 3rd overall pick. All RJ Barrett did last year was improve field goal percentage, 3pt percentage, free throw percentage, rebounds, points and cut down on turnovers. That seems like good to me! Which brings me to this. The Barstool Sportsbook:
RJ is +4000 to win Most Improved Player? Yeah, give me a little piece of that action. Like that scout says, he's making reads faster. He also doesn't have to play with Elfird Payton. That's a huge win. Here's what RJ can do. He's a playmaker, always has been, always will be. You can use him in pick and rolls. You can ISO him on the wing. He shot 40% from three last year. Let's say he stays right there. Defenses can't just sag off of him and he's always at his best using the dribble to get to the lane. And again, no Elfird Payton.
Speaking of the Barstool Sportsbook.
One game more than last year? For a team returning everyone and improving point guard play? A team that went 41-31 last year in a shortened season. Yeah, I like the sound of that. Here's what we know too. Thibs is going to play his guys in the regular season. It's the knock on him is that he cares almost too much about the regular season. Randle, Barrett, Kemba, etc. they are all going to play a ton of minutes and a ton of games. That's how we get to the over.
Now hit the damn music.
PS: We're breaking heat out this year? Oh hell yeah.