fishmike wrote:<snip>
Knicks need to NOT lose perspective on Frank. He's 22. Everyone can see he was drafted way too young. He's clearly still getting stronger. His defensive chops are tantalizing and I am not ready to give up on that. When you see Frank's shots and his form the thought is his #s should be better. Form looks good.Anyway if we are patient Frank can fill a wildly important role. A guy you can bring off the bench, guard 1-4, a nightmare on switches and vs. P&R. Good at the FT line so you can play in late. Good secondary ball handler. He and IQ are actually a perfect bench combo (or could be)
The primary problem with Frank is he was drafted so young - front offices see a perfect ball of clay with the potential to molded into the ideal player. At age 22, it can still happen. But you never know what the growth curve will look like - sometimes it takes years of development on the bench or lots of failure on the floor before you get a good player. And sometimes the player fails to develop altogether. (it seems like he has always had groin issue/injury setbacks every single time he's been slated to get playing time, but we see his FT% and 3pt% coming along over time - but without the experience, we haven't really seen him develop as a PG)
The easy projection would have been a 3&D player with plus playmaking. It's taken a long while for the 3 to appear consistently, but he might be here today.
The high end projection is a super-size starting PG with elite D - basically, what Lonzo Ball and Dejounte Murray look like TODAY. (Fans have long pined for him to get minutes at PG (or even minutes in general!), but he hasn't really proven that he's capable of being even a backup PG - this of course, is keeping in mind that if we're built around point-PF Randle, a ball-dominating PG like isn't really needed on this team...)
Frank still shows flashes of brilliance and continues to tease that he could be more, and as a result, that will increase the cost to keep him. (or you can get a 3&D veteran like Bullock for half the price)