Knicks Opportunity To Learn Without Kidd

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With Jason Kidd out with back spasms, now poses an interesting time to look at the impact he has had on the New York Knicks early in the season. Kevin Pelton did a nice breakdown for Basketball Prospectus..

Here is a peak at Kidd’s on/off court numbers from NBA.com.

As those numbers show, the Knicks have been a much better team when Jason Kidd has played.

On the positive, without Kidd, the Knicks played well offensively and defensively against the Bucks Wednesday night. Here is the Hoopdata.com team box score.

Granted, a game against the Bucks isn’t the greatest measure for a team’s offense or defense, it was still reassuring to see them pull out the win. According to Hollinger’s stats on ESPN.com, Milwaukee ranks 16th in the NBA for defensive efficiency, with a rating of 101, and 19th in offensive efficiency, with a rating of 99.8.

Without Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, though, the Bucks have no one even close to being capable of defending Carmelo Anthony, hindering their defense even more.

Since the Knicks don’t like to speak on injuries, no one really knows how long Kidd is going to be out for. I personally thought, when he missed the Nets game, that they were giving him a veteran’s day off. This is what happens with the Knicks, they drive you to make guesses on a player’s status.

The next three games against Washington, Phoenix and Charlotte should give New York ample time to work on their non Kidd offense with all three teams ranking in the bottom half of the league in defensive efficiency.

While this time without Kidd isn’t good in the present, it could actually help the team long term.

  • http://www.facebook.com/cris.eastmond Cris MaddGenius Eastmond

    I’m so very sick of hearing that the KNicks have some extra special subterfuge going on with their injury reporting. No team in any sport likes to talk about injuries. We just had Oakland admit flat out that they lied about the kind of surgery Bogut had. For years in the NFL the league has tried to force teams to talk about injuries, and yet this year alone concussions have been hidden on more than one occasion. Everyone has a bump and a bruise and is day to day until otherwise noted. The difference with the knicks is that James Dolan has a (smart) comprehensive media policy. Don’t say nothin till its apporved. It helps keep the organization on message and focused on the job at hand. The media hates it though and has been slandering him for years.

  • http://twitter.com/nachofp23 Nacho FP

    Men, i’ve reading your posts since last season (maybe before), and i love them. Your posts are so complete and clear that i’m gratefull for finding this page. Although i don’t write here so much, your work is really amazing, i enter this page EVERY SINGLE DAY, and all the work you do worths. So congrats for that. Greets from Argentina, loving Knicks a whole life (now probably more than ever) . Sorry about grammar mistakes.