I love this kid Justise Winslow. He's everything you want to see in a 2 way player. He's not your typical star but he's a winning player. This article by Chris Herring, discusses the idea of the Knicks considering Winslow. Herring is a great Knicks beat writer IMO.
DURHAM, N.C.—After this record-breaking 60-loss season, anything less than the No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming NBA draft will feel like a disappointment to some Knicks fans, particularly those who have chosen sides in the debate over elite freshman centers: Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns vs. Duke’s Jahlil Okafor.JUSTISE WINSLOW
School: Duke.
Position: Forward.
Size: 6-foot-6, 225 pounds.
Age: 19.
Hometown: Houston.
Landing the top spot would obviously afford the Knicks the pick of the litter. But with several roster holes and no first-round pick in 2016, the organization could seek a 2-for-1 by trading down to nab two lottery picks instead of the one it currently has.
Were that to happen, Duke freshman forward Justise Winslow would be of premium interest to the Knicks. So for the fourth installment of our ongoing series on college prospects whom the Knicks should consider drafting (the first three focused on Okafor, Ohio State guard D’Angelo Russell and Kentucky center Willie Cauley-Stein), we went on the road to evaluate Winslow, a superior athlete and jack of all trades, to determine how important a role he could play in the rebuilding of the Knicks.
THE GOOD
Skilled defender: Winslow is rarely beaten off the dribble, slides his feet exceptionally well and gets around screens at the top of the key. He’s disruptive and likes to deny the ball, often jumping into passing lanes. It isn’t rare to see him sacrifice his body by drawing charges, and between good positioning and a 6-foot-10 wingspan, Winslow usually contests shots without leaving his feet. Overall, he’s held opposing players to just 32% shooting when serving as the primary defender, according to SportVU. All of this should appeal to the Knicks, who rank 29th in defense and have been among the NBA’s bottom-10 on that end for eight of the past 10 years.
Slashing ability: Winslow uses jab steps and shot fakes to get defenders off balance. After that, he’s usually too fast and strong to be kept out of the paint. As a lefty, he draws offensive comparisons to James Harden, which are a bit far-fetched since Winslow, who possesses the ball 1.9 seconds per touch, isn’t nearly as ball-dominant as Harden, who handles it for 5.7 seconds on average, according to NBA Savant. Still, their slashing abilities are similar—even the exaggerated head snap, to prompt foul calls—which would help the Knicks, who rank last in free-throw rate. Winslow drives six times a night, shooting 49% on those takes while getting fouled 20% of the time; Harden shoots 48% on drives, while getting fouled 20.5% of the time.
Top-grade athleticism: Winslow is typically the best athlete on the floor. At 6-foot-6 and a chiseled 225 pounds, he resembles an NBA veteran despite having just turned 19. His timing, paired with an incredible leaping ability, allows him to grab rebounds at their highest point, well above the rim. That explains how Winslow leads Duke in defensive-rebound rate—even ahead of Okafor—grabbing 19.4% of opponents’ misfires. He also displays fantastic closing speed in transition defense, frequently making the sort of eye-popping chase-down blocks that bring LeBron James to mind.
THE BAD
Shooting: Winslow’s already shown to be a capable shooter, and actually leads Duke in three-point shooting at nearly 42%. But it is fair to wonder how he’ll perform in a system that provides less open shots, since he’s enjoyed ample spacing with all the double-teams Okafor commands. His figures dip quite a bit when he’s not playing alongside the All-America center—from 45% behind the arc and 52% overall down to just 31% from three and 40% overall. And he’s struggled mightily at the elbow, where he’d frequently get the ball in the triangle, shooting just 18% (8-of-45) from there, per Shot Analytics. (The Knicks handle the ball on the elbow an NBA-high 32 times a game, according to SportVU.) Winslow’s jump-shot inconsistency is similar to that of ex-Knick Iman Shumpert’s in that the nature of his misses—with air balls, or shots that miss the rim altogether—is more troubling than the actual percentage he shoots. Additionally, his 63% mark at the line is subpar for someone at his position.
FIXING THE KNICKS
This is the fourth part of a series on college prospects the Knicks should consider drafting.
Should Jahlil Okafor Be the Knicks’ Center of Attention?
Is D’Angelo Russell a Guard the Knicks Should Shoot For?
In Defense of Taking Willie Cauley-Stein
Trouble passing: Winslow is a decent distributor, with an assist-to-turnover ratio a little better than 1-to-1. Yet he frequently misses his target, usually by throwing the ball too high when feeding the post or trying to make skip passes. Of his 68 turnovers, half have been the result of bad passes. Some of that stems from trying to get the ball to the 6-foot-11 Okafor in a place where only he can catch it. But good post feeds, and decent passes in general, are vital in the triangle, because of the rhythm and precision that is needed to run the system.
Same position as Carmelo: It’d be somewhat odd if the Knicks drafted him, simply because coach Derek Fisher seems to prefer playing Anthony at small forward, where he logged nearly 80% of his minutes this past season. Beyond that, each of the team’s last three draft picks, Thanasis Antetokounmpo, Cleanthony Early and Tim Hardaway, Jr.—all three of whom remain under organizational control next season—are wing players. The Knicks overcrowded the guard position in 2013 by drafting Hardaway when Shumpert and J.R. Smith were already on the roster. Drafting Winslow would seemingly repeat that process at the small forward spot.
NOTES
Accountability after turning it over: Many of Winslow’s chase-down blocks have garnered great attention and gone viral. Looking more closely at those plays, it is interesting to note that they typically happen immediately after he has made a blunder. Seven of his 11 chase-downs occurred right after Winslow turned the ball over or missed a shot. We asked him whether that was mere coincidence, and he said, “When I make a mistake, I want to make up for it. If I can make a big play happen right after [turning the ball over], it pushes the momentum back in our favor.”
Agitates the competition: Talent evaluators praise Winslow for his even keel on the court. Still, similar to someone like Dwyane Wade, he’s occasionally made questionable—and perhaps even dirty—plays that rile up the opposing team and prompt officials to look into whether his actions are legal. In a road win against rival North Carolina, he controversially extended his leg into the midsection of a Tar Heel player while going in for a layup (which surprisingly was only whistled as an offensive foul) before later hooking another Carolina player with his leg (whistled as a flagrant-one). He also got tangled up with Virginia’s Justin Anderson by grabbing onto his ankle from the ground, another play that drew a flagrant-one foul.
Bully ball: The swingman follows his shots, and rebounds his misfires at a high rate as a result. Winslow grabs nearly 7% of his misses; nearly identical to Anthony—perennially among the league leaders in rebounding his own misfires—who posted a rate of 6.7% before his season-ending surgery. Also similar to Anthony: Winslow’s spent time serving as a small-ball power forward this year.
Favors left side of floor: Winslow doesn’t hesitate to drive right when defenders push him that direction. As a jump-shooter, though, he’s more comfortable from the left, taking 50% of his attempts from that side of the floor, compared with 37% from the right, according to Shot Analytics. (He also shoots much more accurately, 42% instead of 25%, when launching jumpers from the left.) Separately, Winslow prefers spot-up jumpers to off-the-dribbles ones, and has launched about three times as many shots off the catch this season.
Early-game jitters: For whatever reason, Winslow has struggled to safeguard the ball in the first two minutes of Duke games, turning it over within that window in nine different contests. He’s also hit just 25% of his shot attempts (6-of-24) in the opening two minutes.
THE UPSHOT
For all his talent, and lack of apparent flaws, it is hard to see how the Knicks could take Winslow in the draft unless they do one of two things, or both: 1) Obtain a second lottery pick by trading down or 2) Move one or two of the other young wing players to avoid a logjam that potentially stunts someone’s development.
Short of that, it seems unlikely that they’d take Winslow, even if they fall to No. 4 in the lottery. To take him there, they’d be passing up at least one available big man (between Okafor, Towns and Willie Cauley-Stein) or one highly-touted guard (between Emmanuel Mudiay and D’Angelo Russell) to take a player who’s seemingly good at everything, but not so great at any one thing to where he appears to be a truly transformative prospect.
Still, Winslow is undoubtedly the kind of player the Knicks could use. In an ideal world, the team’s front office would realize that someone like Winslow, with great defensive instincts and solid rebounding, allows the aging Anthony to exert less energy on defense by letting him defend the post as opposed to chasing wing players around screens on the perimeter.
But if Fisher views Anthony as a small forward, and the Knicks only have one first-rounder to use, it’d be a bit puzzling to see them use that selection on Winslow—even if he is among the most talented, well-rounded prospects in the country.
Write to Chris Herring at chris.herring@wsj.com
4/3/2015 10:29 PM
