Alec Burks' days with the New York Knicks could be numbered and there might be a literal countdown going.
Burks' struggles since rejoining the Knicks continued on Thursday when the team opened a four-game road trip against the Portland Trail Blazers. Though the Knicks took care of business with a 105-93 final, Burks' issues were a troubling subplot: after earning five points (2-of-5 from the floor) and a rebound over the first 24 minutes, Burks was held out of the entire second half, playing a season-low 4:18.
Asked about Burks' inactivity in the aftermath, Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau offered a brief but telling answer.
"Basketball," Thibodeau said, per Stefan Bondy of the New York Post. "Just basketball."
With no apparent medical ailments holding Burks back, Thursday's de facto ejection is perhaps the latest blow to his second tour with the Knicks: the 32-year-old was one of the Knicks' primary contributors in the early days of the Thibodeau era, averaging 12.1 points and 4.8 rebounds over two seasons (2019-21) but has struggled to reprise that role.
When the Knicks got Burks, hitting just over 40 percent from three-point range in his first 43 games, back in a trade deadline deal with Detroit, some observers reasoned that his arrival (along with that of fellow former Detroiter Bojan Bogdanovic) partly gave New York one of the deepest 11-man sets in the Association (when fully healthy, of course).
But Burks has struggled to be a positive difference-maker, hitting less than 32 percent from he field and positive a negative assists-to-turnover ratio. Since hitting 7-of-14 in his return to the Knicks on Feb. 10 against Indiana, Burks has not had an even shooting night. New York is also a minus-35 on the scoreboard when he's been on the floor.
Thibodeau has cited the pratfalls of adjusting to newcomers in the rotation as a partial reason for Burks' struggles, but he and the Knicks hardly have to produce a redemption story for him.
Time will tell if Burks is afforded an opportunity to get it together, as he and the Knicks return to action on Saturday night against the Sacramento Kings (10 p.m. ET, MSG).
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