Analyst Argues Against Knicks Center’s Position Change

The starting lineup that the New York Knicks plan to roll out on this upcoming season's opening night remains one of the bigger questions surrounding the team as they enter the quietest part of the summer.

They got a new coach in Mike Brown who promises to be more creative with how the team operates on offense. He's already stressing pace and space, the sort of principles he's preached at previous stops and a recipe he's willing to return to with the deep Knicks team he's been given the keys to.

There remains the question of which five-man combination he'll turn to for the first minutes of this fall's regular season, a statement that goes far beyond a specific late-October matchup and one he's yet to fully reveal. Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges are locked into the starting five, but Josh Hart and Mitchell Robinson are evidently still vying for the final spot. Hart held the honor last season, but Robinson's insertion deep into the playoffs boosted the team's defense while removing the stagnated Hart from his usual big minutes.

Whispers have persisted spreading rumors of both sides of the argument, but one analyst thinks the Knicks should continue riding with Towns at the five to continue maximizing their offense, which would mean Hart would start instead of defense-first big man Robinson.

“New York had the 2nd best offensive rating in the NBA over the first 41 games last season with Towns only playing the center position," Forbes' Tom Rende wrote. "Things changed over the back half of the year for a variety of reasons, but one was a failure to maximize Towns at the five when non-centers were guarding him. The hope is that Brown finds the magic elixir that allows the Knicks to thrive with a dominant offense that highlights the best traits of Towns at center.”

Much was said about former head coach Tom Thibodeau failing to get his players to play together, as they often looked to be operating without much chemistry on the floor. Towns, for all of his shortcomings as a defensive player, does provide the team with a spacing jump, with the All-Star rattling off the best 3-point shooting season of his career in combining accuracy (42% from distance) with volume (4.7 attempts per game).

While Hart wasn't much help as a floor spacer, Robinson would force Towns further out of the position he's grown comfortable in. He and Brunson haven't shown much in the way of working together on offense as the team's two premier scorers, but that's where Brown can come in with some of his familiar handoffs and two-man actions.

There remains a lot of room to grow with the lineup that Knicks fans are most familiar with, and the man who looks to implement the most change is already drawing eyes before marker has been put to whiteboard.