It’s time for the Knicks to free Immanuel Quickley

The most impressive thing about Immanuel Quickley is the speed with which he scores. (Sorry.) Guard Knicks is tied for fourth place among the newcomers in points per game (12.2), despite being 18th in minutes (18.8 per game). The no. 25 pick already looks like a steal, and its success is a good example of how valuable kicking has become in the modern NBA. The hit on him before the draft was that he was a six-foot-tall shooter who was unable to execute the point. Now, the question is whether someone the size of himself it needs to race point if they can shoot like that.

Quickley played an important role in New York’s unexpected success this season. He has made the most of his opportunities, getting off the bench and transforming the Knicks’ attack with his ability to kick the dribble from anywhere on the ground. They are not. 29 in the NBA in attempts of 3 points per game (27.7 per game). Your ability to throw 3s (8.7 attempts for 36 minutes of play) removes the limit of your attack and makes life easier for everyone else. Quickley can reverse a game on some assets. He scored 25 points in 20 minutes in the 140-121 victory over Kings on Thursday. The Knicks’ second unit was so dominant that Sacramento coach Luke Walton was breaking down clipboards in frustration:

Defenders must be aware of Quickley at all times. He is a knockdown sniper with a quick release who doesn’t need much time to get his feet in place. Do not catch it in the transition, or lose sight of it even for a few seconds in the half court, and there are almost 3 automatic points:

The numbers indicate that his shot was no accident. His free-throw shot (93.8% in 3.3 attempts per game) is even more impressive than his 3-point shot (37.1% in 4.6 attempts). This trend goes back to his two seasons in Kentucky, where he hit 89.5 percent of the free-throw line in 3.3 attempts per game. Quickley must be a sniper for a long time.

But what makes it special is its combination of shooting ability and ball. He already knows how to use these skills to terrorize pick-and-roll defenses. Quickley obtains 47.3 percent of his offensive possessions as the ball handler in play, and is in the 89th percentile of scorers. It’s easy for him to dance around a screen and create his own scene:

The other thing that separates Quickley from his colleagues is his ability to score fouls. He’s a modern guard with an old soul. He knows how to put a defender in prison and force the referee to whistle:

Usually, refs don’t give many calls to newbies. Quickley is the second among the newcomers to have played at least 25 games with a foul rate (0.348). It is not a coincidence that it is not. 3 is Facundo Campazzo (0.306), a 29-year-old EuroLeague veteran who is a novice in name only. The struggles of Quickley’s former teammate in Kentucky, Tyrese Maxey, to reach the line (0.106) are much more typical.

This ability to attract contact saved Quickley on nights when his shot was not falling. He hit 1 out of 12 from the field and 7 out of 7 from the free-throw line in his loss to Magic last week. It is far from being a finished product. He almost never makes it to the ring and throws only 41.0 percent in the 2-point range at 5.0 attempts per game. He trusts the floater a lot, which accounts for 36.1% of his total strokes.

There are enough difficult points in Quickley’s game that it’s understandable why Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau didn’t trust him anymore. He is the fifth guard in the rotation behind Elfrid Payton, RJ Barrett, Alec Burks and newly acquired Derrick Rose. Watch a game in which he has only two short passes off the bench, as when he played nine minutes in the victory over the Wolves last Sunday, and it is difficult to see the reason for all the fuss.

But Thibodeau’s reluctance makes less sense when you consider how Quickley fits in with other important players in New York. The Knicks go from a net rating of over-4.5 in 548 minutes with him this season to-1.6 in 1,036 minutes without him. There is still a lot of room for them to improve because Thibs relied heavily on an initial lineup that did not work. The regular Knicks starters (Payton, Barrett, Reggie Bullock, Julius Randle and Mitchell Robinson) are the most disputed lineup in the league (391 minutes), despite having a net rating of just over-0.9. Replace Payton with Quickley and that number goes up to over 26 in 24 minutes.

Quickley complements the other entries better than Payton. The latter is a traditional general who does his best when he can control the progress of the game and execute the attack. But that is what Randle and Barrett want to do. These two don’t need another ace. They need someone like Quickley, who can open the ground and be an escape valve when attacking half a block. Payton, who is shooting 24.1 percent in 3 out of 1.8 attempts per game, destroys the spacing of a team that never had much to start with. And although he is a better defender than Quickley, Barrett and Bullock can handle the difficult tasks at that end of the court.

The fit between Randle, who was just named for his first All-Star game, and Quickley is the most important. Randle is a striker with an average of career highlights in touch (82.2 per game) and assists (5.5). His ability to run at his size means that a sniper the size of a firearm like Quickley does not need. It is a perfect combination of skills. The lineup numbers indicate that the two must play together all the time:

That should be the lesson for the rest of the league. Quickley would not be so good if he were in a team that forced him to a more traditional role, in which he needed to balance the score and the pass. He needs the freedom to bomb from the depths. But the reverse is even more important. Great game creators like Randle need 3 volume point snipers like Quickley. Both types of players were rare a generation ago. They will be common in the coming years. The NBA has more attackers and points centers than ever before, and players who manage to fire the dribble with unlimited range are leaving the college game at ever-increasing rates.

Now, the traditional shipowners are the ones in the middle. A team has more flexibility when building an attack around a six-foot player like Randle than a six-foot player like Payton. Quickley would have been stuck in a sixth man not too long ago because he is not a main ball handler and is not big enough to protect his wings. But the Knicks can benefit from their elite 3-point shot for most of the game if they want to. They were lucky in a weapon that distorts defenses with no. 25 pick. It’s time for them to use it.