{"id":687,"date":"2016-09-19T07:45:19","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T11:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/?p=687"},"modified":"2016-09-17T15:44:22","modified_gmt":"2016-09-17T19:44:22","slug":"new-york-knicks-roster-shooting-guards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2016\/09\/19\/new-york-knicks-roster-shooting-guards\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Knicks Roster Breakdown: Shooting Guards"},"content":{"rendered":"

NBA<\/strong> fans around the world: rejoice. The 2016-17 NBA season is quickly approaching. Over a five week span,\u00a0Last Word On Pro Basketball<\/strong>\u00a0will provide a breakdown of the\u00a0New York Knicks<\/strong> roster, looking at a different position each week. In this edition, we take a look at the shooting guards.<\/em><\/p>\n

New York Knicks Roster Breakdown: Shooting Guards<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There is one word that describes the shooting guards that have recently been on the Knicks roster. That word is inconsistent. First, it was J.R. Smith<\/a><\/strong>. He was not only inconsistent from season to season, but from game to game as well. Smith could shoot the team into a game just as fast as he could shoot them out of one. Then came along Tim Hardaway<\/a> Jr<\/strong>. He was able to put up 30 points in a game just as easily as he’d score\u00a0five points. Both of these players have been traded in\u00a0the past couple years. Finally, veteran Arron Afflalo<\/a><\/strong> was brought in to be a complementary scorer to New York’s star,\u00a0Carmelo Anthony<\/a><\/strong>. Afflalo\u00a0may have been the most inconsistent and disappointing player on the Knicks roster last season. Just like at point guard, New York decided to retool the shooting guard position during the off-season.<\/p>\n

Starter: Courtney Lee<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n

New York signed\u00a0Courtney Lee<\/strong> to a four-year, $48 million contract in the off-season. He is currently the only guard on the Knicks roster under contract beyond\u00a0this season. The 6’5″, 200 lbs\u00a0eight-year veteran comes in as\u00a0arguably the team’s best perimeter defender. Lee has been a journeyman over his NBA career. Going into his ninth season, New York is Lee’s seventh team.<\/p>\n

Lee has averaged 9.6 points, 1.6 assists, 2.6 rebounds, and 1.0 steals per game since being selected\u00a022nd overall by the Orlando Magic\u00a0<\/strong>in the 2008 NBA Draft<\/strong>. Those numbers should\u00a0not be considered setting the league on fire. But, because of the other transactions that were made, New York does not need that type of player at shooting guard. Lee is a career 38.4 percent three-point shooter. The Knicks do<\/em> need a\u00a0consistent “3 and D” player, and that’s why they brought in Lee.<\/p>\n

Primary Back-up: Justin Holiday<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Justin Holiday<\/strong> is considered by many to just be a\u00a0throw-in player from this off-season’s\u00a0Derrick Rose<\/a><\/strong> trade. However, Holiday has\u00a0the ability and\u00a0physical stature to be a consistent contributor off of New York’s bench. Holiday’s 6’6″, 185 lbs frame allows him to play either the shooting guard or small forward positions, depending on the match-up. Like Lee, Holiday is also a journeyman. The Knicks will already be his fifth NBA team, despite next season being\u00a0only his fourth in the league.<\/p>\n

Holiday is the younger brother of New Orleans Pelicans<\/strong> point guard Jrue Holiday<\/a><\/strong>. The 27-year-old wing had his best statistical\u00a0season\u00a0last year. His 6.5 points, 2.3 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 0.7 steals, and 43.3 three-point percentage were all career highs. Holiday has one year remaining on his current contract. The 2016-17 season could be a breakout year for Holiday as he tries to earn his next deal.<\/p>\n

Third String: Sasha Vujacic<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n

This spot on the depth chart is usually reserved for a young, raw project player looking to earn playing time. In some cases, though, this spot can be filled by an experienced veteran who is brought in to mentor the younger players on the team. Sasha Vujacic<\/strong> was re-signed for that purpose. Last year, he helped rookie Kristaps Porzingis<\/a><\/strong> transition to the NBA. This season, he will have the chance to take incoming rookies\u00a0Guillermo Hernangomez<\/strong> and Mindaugas Kuzminskas<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0under his wing.<\/p>\n

Vujacic was\u00a0a two-time NBA champion playing under\u00a0Phil Jackson<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0— the coach —\u00a0for\u00a0the Los Angeles Lakers<\/strong>. His knowledge of Jackson’s triangle offense is another reason he is on the roster. As long as things go as planned, Vujacic should not see as much\u00a0playing time as\u00a0he saw last year. He averaged 14.9 minutes per game in his\u00a061 games during the 2015-16\u00a0season. At times, Vujacic\u00a0played with more fire and passion then anyone on the team. If the other guards struggle and the Knicks need a spark, they may just end up turning to Vujacic.<\/p>\n

With the way that this Knicks roster is built, they do not need their shooting guard position to have\u00a0a dominant scorer. All they\u00a0need out of the position is consistency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Knicks roster didn’t just undergo changes at point guard this off-season; the Knicks also drastically altered their shooting guard rotation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1072,"featured_media":143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[12,62],"tags":[288,65,94,40,289,96,58,290,287],"class_list":["post-687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-knicks","category-nba","tag-arron-afflalo","tag-basketball","tag-courtney-lee","tag-j-r-smith","tag-justin-holiday","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-sasha-vujacic","tag-tim-hardaway-jr"],"modified_by":"Lior Kozai (Managing Editor)","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687","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\/1072"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}