In our 2024-25 New York Knicks statistical preview series, we’ll be breaking down key members of the roster from an analytical perspective, focusing on three specific categories for each player:
- How his role and outlook is affected by the Knicks’ roster turnover
- Strengths from the 2023-24 season he will aim to maintain
- Areas where he can improve off of the 2023-24 season
We begin with the Knicks’ beloved franchise point guard, Jalen Brunson.
Effect of roster changes
Healthier shot volume
Brunson’s surge to MVP candidacy in the 2023-24 season was fueled by his spike in usage following Julius Randle’s injury. After averaging 19.5 field goal attempts prior to Randle’s injury, Brunson jumped to 23.9 for the remainder of the regular season, then to 26.2 in the playoffs.
The Roommates Show host handled the enormous volume about as admirably as he possibly could, carrying the Knicks to within one win of the Eastern Conference Finals. However, for Brunson to be his most effective – and the Knicks as a team – he cannot continue taking 24-26 shots per game.
In terms of true shooting percentage, Brunson’s most efficient month of the 2023-24 season was November, when he recorded a sparkling .619 TS%. That month, he only took 19.2 FGA per game.
Brunson’s worst shooting month (sans 4 games in October) was February, posting a .569 TS%. He averaged a whopping 24.7 FGA per game that month. Then, in the playoffs, when he averaged an absurd 26.2 FGA, Brunson’s TS% dipped all the way to .536, well below the 2023-24 NBA average (.580).
Luckily, with a new core featuring four players who took at least 11 FGA per game last season, Brunson should be spared from a monumental workload. His shot volume will likely dip back to the range of 19-20 shots per game, where he is at his most efficient.
More open layups due to spacing
In today’s NBA, it is unusual to see a star scorer who scores around the basket as infrequently as Brunson.
According to Basketball Reference, only 12.7% of Brunson’s FGA came within three feet of the basket last season. That was the fifth-lowest rate among 20+ PPG scorers, trailing only Kevin Durant (12.5%), Luka Doncic (12.3%), C.J. McCollum (10.7%), and Stephen Curry (7.4%).
It was a career-low rate for Brunson. He went as high as 21.8% and 21.4% in his 2018-19 and 2020-21 seasons with the Mavericks.
Brunson’s lack of layups could be a product of the Knicks’ subpar spacing. He has played essentially all of his Knicks minutes with a center who was not a threat outside of the paint, allowing opposing centers to hang back defensively. Now playing alongside Karl-Anthony Towns, the paint should open up for Brunson, allowing him to turn some of his floaters into layups (a far more efficient shot).
What he wants to maintain
Three-point shooting
Brunson hit a career-high 41.6% of his three-point attempts in his first season as a Knick, and he followed it up with a 40.1% clip in his second. He did it while upping his attempts from 4.7 to 6.8, which is promising. The Knicks would love to see Brunson maintain this combination of volume and efficiency from deep.
Floater dominance
Brunson attempted an NBA-high 369 floaters in 2023-24, making a whopping 54.7% of them. His volume and efficiency on floaters is a weapon that allows him to achieve elite scorer status. If defenders bite on his crafty mid-range fakes, he can take a few steps in and score from just outside of the restricted area at a high clip.
In addition, the threat of Brunson’s floater pulls big men away from the basket, opening up alley-oops and back-door passes behind them.
What he’ll aim to improve
Passing
Brunson averaged 6.7 assists per game, which ranked 13th in the NBA.
However, relative to his heavy usage percentage, it is a fairly underwhelming number for a point guard. According to Cleaning The Glass, Brunson’s 0.94 ratio of assist percentage to usage percentage ranked in the 30th percentile among point guards. This metric tells us how often a player gets an assist relative to how often he has the ball.
Brunson will have to pick up more of the playmaking load after the Knicks lost some of their best facilitators. Past Brunson, three of the Knicks’ next four leaders in assists from the 2023-24 season are no longer in the Mecca: Julius Randle (229), Donte DiVincenzo (216), and Isaiah Hartenstein (188).
Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges will help to some degree, but with Brunson being surrounded by more scoring and shooting threats than ever before, it will fall on his shoulders to make sure everybody in the offense is well-fed. This is the best opportunity of his career to flex his muscles as a distributor.
Brunson’s goals this season should be to take fewer shots, boost his shooting efficiency to an even new level, and average over 7 assists per game.
Defense
It is difficult to know how much the undersized Brunson is capable of improving his defense at this point of his career, but he still has plenty of room for growth in that area. He had a defensive EPM (Estimated Plus-Minus) of -0.5 last season, signaling he was slightly below-average.
That is an acceptable level of defensive impact when coupled with his incredible offensive impact. Brunson’s +6.4 offensive EPM was fourth-best among NBA players. Paired with his -0.5 defensive EPM, Brunson still had an overall EPM of +5.9, which tied him with LeBron James for sixth-best.
Still, he can always strive to get better, especially now that he should have more effort to utilize on defense with a lighter workload offensively.
