As the playoffs inch closer, it\u2019s important to note that the New York Knicks have one remaining spot. At this point of the season, the rotation is all but set. Still, it wouldn\u2019t hurt for the Knicks to fortify their roster with an additional weapon. If that player so happened to fill a void, all the better.<\/p>\n
With that in mind, T.J. Warren<\/a> and Chuma Okeke<\/a> \u201care among the players<\/a> on the Knicks\u2019 radar for that spot,\u201d according to SNY insider Ian Begley.<\/p>\n Warren and Okeke, both of whom play the forward position, have been suiting up for New York\u2019s G League affiliate this season. Notably, Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau has been quite complimentary about Warren\u2019s willingness to work his way back to the NBA by taking the G League route. That isn\u2019t to say that Okeke wouldn\u2019t be useful for New York if signed. However, if it\u2019s an either-or proposition, Warren\u2019s skillset should give him an advantage.<\/p>\n The Knicks\u2019 depth has been a conversation starter all season.<\/p>\n As with any Thibodeau-coached team, the first unit was going to get more than the lion\u2019s share of minutes. Nevertheless, the scoring deficiencies of the second unit have put undue pressure upon the starters. To that point, the Knicks\u2019 bench ranks 30th in points per game<\/a> (21.3). In fact, the difference between their scoring average and the next-highest team (+4.1 points) is the same as the difference between the 19th-place Minnesota Timberwolves (33.9 PPG) and the 25th-place Philadelphia 76ers (29.8 PPG).<\/p>\n It\u2019s unlikely that New York will be able to solve that problem overnight. However, signing a player like Warren could definitely give them a jolt. Among the better scorers, he has a career average 14.3 points per game.<\/p>\n The only problem with the idea of signing Warren for his scoring upside is that he usually needs to warm up before he heats up.<\/p>\n When playing 10-19 minutes, he averages just 5.0 points per game. Conversely, when he gets 20-29 minutes, he averages 12.4 points per game. Additionally, he averages 8.1 points per game as a reserve but 18.2 points per game as a starter.<\/p>\n With Westchester, Warren\u2019s averaging 24.7 points in 37.0 minutes per game. Yet, that\u2019s more points per minute than he\u2019s scored as an NBA starter or reserve. Ultimately, his body of work suggests that he\u2019s not necessarily instant offense but a spark plug nonetheless.<\/p>\n Warren very well could excel with New York. Due to OG <\/a>Anunoby\u2019s<\/a> lackluster performance since coming out of the All-Star Break, Thibodeau may be more willing to mix things up. As Mitchell Robinson<\/a> is set to return soon<\/a>, their rotation needs at least one adjustment anyways.<\/p>\n Still, if the Knicks do sign Warren, tempering expectations is probably a good idea.<\/p>\n \u00a9 Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the playoffs inch closer, it\u2019s important to note that the New York Knicks have one remaining spot. At this point of the season, the rotation is all but set. Still, it wouldn\u2019t hurt for the Knicks to fortify their roster with an additional weapon. If that player so happened to fill a void, all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":126096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1608,62,3],"tags":[4265,297,3142],"class_list":["post-126095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-knicks","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-chuma-okeke","tag-nba-free-agency","tag-tj-warren"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126095"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126097,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126095\/revisions\/126097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Knicks Considering TJ Warren With Open Roster Spot<\/h2>\n
Not So Fast!<\/h3>\n