You’re in a huge market and your NBA team, the Knicks, once seen as a potential contender by those within the organization, pretty much stinks on ice all season. So you start looking for positives.
There should be a good draft pick, a lottery choice in a year loaded with talent.
OK, move on to another positive. That draft thing for the Knicks is a whole different story.
Tim Hardaway Jr. has emerged amid the gloom.
This one is legit, according to a group of NBA scouts and executives. While Hardaway, who is looking like a steal at No. 24 last June, must work on consistency, the consensus was decidedly positive about the 6-foot-6 shooting guard from Michigan.
“He’s a keeper,” said one scout before predicting, “other teams may try to get him. … He’ll be a good fit in the triangle. Coming off the pinch post would be good for him. He’d get shots, they’d send him to the corner. Definitely a keeper.”
As a rookie, Hardaway has shot .428, including .358 on 3-pointers, while averaging 9.9 points per game for the Knicks (33-45), who are dangling over playoff extinction (tragic number of three, with the 34-42 Hawks playing Detroit on Tuesday night). His most recent outing was an 0-of-7 nightmare in Miami on Sunday that ended with coach Mike Woodson yanking him.
“They want him to put points on the board, and that tells you he’s a good shooter. If he wasn’t, they’d say just go cause disruption on the defensive end, so he must be a player they count on to score,” said one former player/scout.
“He’s an obvious NBA talent. It looks like he could be a good defender, seems like a good teammate. Can shoot but really needs to work on his consistency. He can be lights out one night, out of sync the next.”
Isn’t that called being a rookie?
“And look at the year he has gone through,” the ex-player/scout said. “Being in New York when you only win 30-something games, Mike Woodson being on the hot seat with all the losing. They go out and get Phil Jackson. It’s just really hard on a rookie to go through something like that. It wears on you, it really does.”
One opposing team executive said Hardaway was a terrific pick at No. 24, a spot that in the last decade has yielded quality players (Hardaway, Reggie Jackson, Serge Ibaka, Rudy Fernandez, Kyle Lowry).
“For where he was picked, I would keep him. He’s a high-volume shooter who needs minutes,” the exec said, adding that toward the end of the season Hardaway “has regressed a little bit.”
But should the Knicks use Hardaway as a trade chip to get into the first round this season?
“I wouldn’t,” said one Eastern scout. “Right now, he’s one-dimensional. He’s a shooter. But you can see the potential and once he understands schemes and everything, he’ll be a good defender.”
One perceived rap against Hardaway is shooting too much, but even this aspect was universally defended by those surveyed.
“That’s his role,” said the Eastern scout. “I never thought he was a ball hog or anything when I saw him. … The last time I saw him on TV, he passed up two shots in a row and [Jeff] Van Gundy said, ‘Hey, you’re in there to shoot. Shoot the ball.’ ”
An opposing Eastern Conference team executive concurred.
“You don’t know. Maybe Woodson is telling him, ‘I’d rather you shoot first’ because maybe he’s prone to turnovers,” the exec said. “Maybe they don’t feel he’s totally ready for the pace of the game. There can be a lot of underlying things as to why he shoots first. The game will slow down for him. There are a lot of good players like him who see the shot but they don’t see setting someone else up. The good ones improve. I like him.”