{"id":82383,"date":"2024-06-22T10:12:36","date_gmt":"2024-06-22T14:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=82383"},"modified":"2024-06-22T10:12:36","modified_gmt":"2024-06-22T14:12:36","slug":"knicks-draft-bust-signs-with-serbian-club-frank-ntilikina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/22\/knicks-draft-bust-signs-with-serbian-club-frank-ntilikina\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks Draft Bust Signs With Serbian Club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jacksph01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Phil Jackson\u2019s<\/a> tenure as <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/22\/what-the-knicks-can-learn-from-celtics-championship\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Knicks<\/a> president didn\u2019t go well for the team. He was let go just days after the 2017 NBA Draft. One of his last moves while presiding over the team was selecting guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/n\/ntilila01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Frank Ntilikina<\/a> in that draft.\u00a0When Knicks fans are asked why his time with the team is seen in such a negative light, Ntilikina is often one of the first reasons brought up.<\/p>\n<p>He was selected eighth overall. Numerous players selected after him have had much better careers in the NBA, most notably <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mitchdo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Donovan Mitchell<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/adebaba01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bam Adebayo<\/a>.\u00a0Still, he is just 25 years old (turns 26 on July 28), and it looks like Ntilikina will try to reestablish his value away from the NBA.<\/p>\n<h2>Knicks Draft Bust Signs With Serbian Club<\/h2>\n<h3>Frank Ntilikina To Partizan Belgrade of Serbia<\/h3>\n<p>According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/partizan.basketball\/vesti\/aktuelno\/3735\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">press release from the Serbian club<\/a>, Ntilikina has signed a contract with Partizan Belgrade of the EuroLeague. There were some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euroleaguebasketball.net\/euroleague\/teams\/partizan-mozzart-bet-belgrade\/roster\/par\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">former NBA players on their roster<\/a> last season including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kaminfr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Frank Kaminsky<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/cabocbr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bruno Caboclo<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nunnaja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Nunnally<\/a>. Fred Katz of The Athletic reports it is a two-year deal that can allow him to return to the NBA after one year.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Former Knicks guard Frank Ntilikina is signing a two-year contract with Partizan Belgrade, a league source tells The Athletic. Deal has an NBA out in it after one season.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Fred Katz (@FredKatz) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FredKatz\/status\/1803831550632423513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 20, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nWhile the six-foot-four Ntilikina hasn\u2019t established himself as a reliable NBA player, he has shown the ability to be a very good defender at times. If he can continue that while showing more on the offensive end with Partizan Belgrade, a return to the NBA isn\u2019t out of the question.<\/p>\n<p>An example of a draft bust turning his career around is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/e\/exumda01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dante Exum<\/a>. Selected fifth overall in 2014, Exum didn\u2019t make much of a mark in his first six seasons. He left the NBA to play overseas in 2021-22 and 2022-23 before signing with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/21\/dallas-mavericks-gm-reveals-top-priority-this-offseason-derrick-jones-jr\/\" target=\"_self\">Dallas Mavericks<\/a> last offseason. Exum became a valuable player on a Dallas team that reached the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n<h3>Ntilikina Hasn\u2019t Panned Out In NBA<\/h3>\n<p>Ntilikina has spent the past seven seasons in the NBA. His first four came with the Knicks followed by the Mavericks for two seasons. In 2023-24, he appeared in just five games for the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n<p>Entering the league as a 19-year-old, Ntilikina received more than 20 minutes per outing in each of his first three seasons. He looked tentative on offense often and didn\u2019t put the ball in the hoop frequently when he did shoot. Over his first three seasons, Ntilikina shot just 36.6% from the field and \u00a031.1% from three-point range.<\/p>\n<p>It didn\u2019t improve from then either. Ntilikina hasn\u2019t received as much playing time in the following four seasons, but he still has yet to shoot even 40% from the field in any. In 321 career regular season games (65 starts), Ntilikina has per-game averages of 4.8 points, 1.8 rebounds, and 2.2 assists.<\/p>\n<p>While there is still time to turn his career around, Ntilikina remains one of the poster boys for the failed Phil Jackson era with the Knicks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Phil Jackson\u2019s tenure as New York Knicks president didn\u2019t go well for the team. He was let go just days after the 2017 NBA Draft. One of his last moves while presiding over the team was selecting guard Frank Ntilikina in that draft.\u00a0When Knicks fans are asked why his time with the team is seen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":82405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,556],"tags":[1721,666],"class_list":["post-82383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-nba-draft","tag-euroleague","tag-frank-ntilikina"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82383","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\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}