Who should start when Knicks are fully healthy: Isaiah Hartenstein or Mitchell Robinson?

[ad_1]

As Knicks fans eagerly await the return of three of their team’s key starters — OG Anunoby, Julius Randle and Mitchell Robinson — from injury, the coaching staff is planning on how best to implement them back in the lineup. The goal being to use the last month of the season to ramp them up to 100 percent and find some chemistry in time for a playoff push.

That won’t happen without making some tough choices though. For example, at full strength should the Knicks start Robinson or Isaiah Hartenstein at center?

Robinson is likely the higher impact player, an elite defender and offensive rebounder that provides a verticality other members of the roster don’t. But it was Hartenstein that anchored New York’s devastating starting five post-OG trade, and provides much more optionality offensively.

Let’s go through each case and see who would be a better fit in the opening unit.

The case for Mitchell Robinson

Robinson hurt his ankle 21 games into the season, mere weeks before the Knicks shook up their roster by trading RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley for Anunoby. He played the best basketball of his career during that stretch, anchoring a top-10 Knicks defense behind a more mature and predictive approach you’d expect from an NBA veteran.

Robinson only averaged 6.2 points, but fully committed to his role as the team’s defensive ace and rebounding menace. At the time of injury he had an offensive rebounding rate of 20.2, meaning one of every five Knick misses ended up in his hands, which would lead the league today and only be matched by three other players since 1974.

Defensively, Robinson was more reminiscent of peak Tyson Chandler than the bouncy block-chaser he joined the Knicks as. His blocks per 100 possessions are at a career-low 2.2, but that’s more a feature than a bug, a symptom of not flying out of position and instead patiently waiting for offensive players to drive into his trap.

You’ll find evidence of that in his fouls per 100 possessions, at a career-low 3.3 after struggling with them for most of his career. That’s allowed him to notch a career high 29.2 minutes per game, making a better…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/start-knicks-fully-healthy-isaiah-210127970.html

Author : SNY

Publish date : 2024-03-08 21:01:27

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.