New York Knicks - Analysing the off-season thus far

Signing Toure’ Murry: The 6’5” forward was signed to a non-guaranteed contract by the Knicks. Murry’s solid Summer League showing ensured that he got a call from the Knicks, with Mike Woodson being impressed by the former D-Leaguer’s display.

Murry, who played college ball for Wichita State University, played his rookie season for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers where he averaged 9.0ppg, 2.8rpg, 3.0apg, and 1.8spg, helping them capture the NBA D-League title.

Signing Chris Smith: It has been speculated that part of J.R. Smith’s deal included a guarantee by the Knicks that they would sign J.R.’s younger brother, Chris Smith.

Chris Smith

Smith played for the Manhattan Jaspers as a freshman and sophomore and then joined the Louisville Cardinals for his junior and senior years.

Smith, who went undrafted in 2012, was offered a contract by the Knicks after impressing in the Summer League. But a knee injury suffered in training camp meant that his season ended abruptly.

In this year’s edition of the Las Vegas Summer League, he averaged 5.0 points, 2.2 rebounds and 1.8 assists, clocking 19.9 minutes in five games. NBA sources have said that Smith’s contract is a non-guaranteed one, meaning that the Knicks don’t have to necessarily sign him.

In totality, the Knicks seem to have addressed their main concerns, namely size and reliability of their bench. The additions of Metta World Peace and Andrea Bargnani add different dimensions to the Knicks, albeit in two different aspects of the game.

Beno Udrih, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Chris Smith will benefit the Knicks backcourt by providing healthy competition to Raymond Felton, Iman Shumpert and Pablo Prigioni. C.J. Leslie and Jeremy Tyler are raw, young talents who will back up Tyson Chandler, Kenyon Martin and Amar’e Stoudemire with their explosiveness and athleticism.

Hopefully, J.R Smith will not be the J.R. of old that we all know about, and will finally reach the pinnacle of his NBA career this season under the tutelage of Mike Woodson.

The Knicks have always had players who can play defence but only in spurts. Their success would depend on how Mike Woodson motivates them to stay committed on defence throughout the season.

In the last two years, the Knicks have been plagued by injuries to their star players, preventing them from gathering any sort of momentum through the regular season and into the playoffs.

The Anthony-Stoudemire tandem will need to flourish and it will be interesting to see how they sort out their chemistry issues. Hopefully, the players stay healthy and the Larry O’Brien trophy returns to the Garden after a gap of thirty-one years.