As the season winds down and the New York Knicks continue to dive out of playoff contention, the pressure has been on interim head coach Kurt Rambis to give more minutes to some of their younger players. Of those players, rookie Jerian Grant has taken advantage of his first real opportunity in the NBA.
Early on in the 2015-16 season, the New York Knicks were a pleasant surprise, at least in comparison to their expectations. For a good portion of the season, they remained in playoff contention. But they eventually fell off, and for the last couple months, New York has essentially removed themselves from any playoff conversations.
Despite this downswing, the younger players on the roster haven’t seen a lot of playing time. The only two players under 25 who are averaging over 20 minutes per game for New York are the Latvian rookie sensation Kristaps Porzingis and second-year guard Langston Galloway. No one else under 25 years of age has seen significant playing time, including their 2015 first-round pick, point guard Jerian Grant.
Grant was selected with the 19th overall pick in last year’s draft. Prior to that, he spent four years at the University of Notre Dame, establishing himself as a leader for a Fighting Irish team that made it to the Elite Eight in his final season, narrowly losing to the then-undefeated Kentucky Wildcats.
At 6-5, Grant has ideal size for a point guard, and he was an excellent playmaker and floor general in college. Combined with his downsides of not being a consistent shooter and already being 23 when he was drafted, Grant found himself in the mid-first round, and after having his draft rights traded twice, he ended up in New York.
Unfortunately, the Knicks’ second first-round pick hasn’t excelled as much as their first (Kristaps). Grant has found minutes hard to come by, seeing Jose Calderon, Arron Afflalo, and Langston Galloway ahead of him, and even Sasha Vujacic has stolen minutes from him this year. Grant averages only 16.4 minutes per game, and his stats during those minutes have not been remarkable: 5.4 points, 2.3 assists, and 1.8 rebounds per game.
What’s most troubling is how poorly he has been shooting. While Grant was an inconsistent shooter in college, he has been consistently poor in the NBA, shooting 38.7 percent from the field and 20.8 percent from three. And despite being big for a guard, Grant hasn’t been great at the rim, converting only 51.5 percent of his shots from within five feet.
Saddled behind multiple veteran guards and not taking advantage of the few minutes he got, Grant’s rookie season has largely been a disappointment.
But after Calderon went down with an injury, Grant was inserted into the starting lineup at point guard on April 1st and has remained in it for the last few games of the season.
Finally presented a true opportunity to prove his worth and averaging 29.2 minutes in his April starts, the rookie has produced, scoring in double digits in four out of five games.
In April, he has averaged 13.8 points, 3.2 assists, and 3.2 rebounds per game. While the large scoring output jump with extended minutes is extremely encouraging, what’s most exciting for his future prospects is how much Grant has improved his shooting ability.
Five games is a very limited sample compared to the rest of the season, but as a starter, Grant is shooting 46.4 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from three. Being able to create space on the court with his shot has always been a struggle for Grant, so to see his shooting percentages increase so dramatically even as his shot attempts go up is an exciting development for the Knicks.
New York’s fortunes in terms of actually winning games hasn’t changed much with Jerian Grant in the lineup, going 2-3 with the only wins coming against the lowly Nets and Sixers, but after a disappointing overall rookie season, Grant’s hot finish to the year will hopefully be a sign of things to come as he and the rest of the rebuilding New York Knicks moved forward as a franchise.
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