Why the Knicks need more Miles McBride

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Miles McBride entered the 2024-25 season as a potential Sixth Man of the Year candidate coming off a breakout regular season and Playoffs, not to mention the Knicks trading fellow guard Donte DiVincenzo, which opened up a bigger spot for him. It was partially McBride’s ascension that made New York comfortable in moving their second-leading scorer from last year’s postseason, a strong implied trust in his leap and further development.

Unfortunately, this year hasn’t been the follow up fans hoped for. McBride has already dealt with a knee and then a hamstring issue, each sidelining him for five games, hurting his rhythm and nagging him when active.

We’ve seen his three-point shooting, inside finishing, and ball-handling regress in parallel, and he went from playing 26.4 minutes a night in the first 11 games of the season to 22.7 minutes since. He’s shown signs of turning things around in recent games, a positive development for him personally, but especially so for these Knicks.

For all the hype around what McBride could accomplish individually this year, his shaky performance has only emphasized how valuable he is to the team at large. In fact, New York outscores opponents by 4.6 more points per 100 possessions with McBride on the floor vs the bench, even in this “down” season.

That’s a loud signal for a team that, while dominant, still has some glaring weaknesses and isn’t considered among the contenders in the league. If the Knicks want to maximize their potential this season, they’re going to need more Deuce McBride.

The first step is getting more from McBride. His deep shooting is still solid and he’s getting them up at similar volumes, just not connecting at the same rate.

This is especially the case on pull-up threes, a niche but deadly quality only shared by Jalen Brunson on this roster. McBride would punish aggressive closeouts and drop coverages with these, forcing teams to adjust, but he’s now shooting 32 percent on them in 2024-25 compared to 37.2 percent last year and 40 percent in the Playoffs.

McBride’s also fallen off from the corners, where he and the Knicks as a whole love…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/why-knicks-more-miles-mcbride-161429935.html

Author : SNY

Publish date : 2025-02-23 16:14:00

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