Here's another article on how Horny can help Wroten. This is Chris Herring.
By Chris Herring
June 7, 2016 6:40 p.m. ETIs Tony Wroten the Key to Jeff Hornacek’s Plan for the Knicks?
More important than whatever tweaks Hornacek plans to make to Phil Jackson’s triangle offense is his belief that the Knicks must play much faster. Enter Tony Wroten.
Tony Wroten, who left the Philadelphia 76ers to sign with the Knicks in March, may well be the Knicks’ key to playing a more up-tempo style.
For months, most of the chatter surrounding the Knicks and their search for a new coach focused on the team’s triangle offense and who could run it. Now that they’ve settled on Jeff Hornacek, that talk only figures to escalate, since Hornacek will have the freedom to develop a hybrid version of Phil Jackson’s hobby horse.
But that’s only the start of the conversation. More important than whatever tweaks Hornacek plans to make to the triangle—and it’s worth remembering here that Derek Fisher tried to alter the offense, to no avail—is the coach’s belief that the Knicks must play much faster than they have in recent years.
In short, speed is killing the Knicks. They have ranked dead last in fast-break points in each of the past four seasons, allowing teams like the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers to set their stout defenses and prevent the Knicks from catching them off guard. Fast breaks, of course, often start with a turnover on the defensive end, and the Knicks forced fewer turnovers than any team in the history of 82-game NBA era this past season.
When Hornacek arrived in Phoenix for the 2013-14 season, he immediately helped the Suns improve from 29th in offensive efficiency to eighth, and from 14th in fast-break scoring to first. So he clearly has a sense of how to boost offensive pace. But finding concrete ways to speed up the Knicks will be a considerable challenge. The Knicks employ the NBA’s oldest starting point guard (Jose Calderon) and a star (Carmelo Anthony) who slows down games to go 1-on-1 more than any other player in the Eastern Conference.
Hornacek knows that the Knicks will need to be in great shape to execute his system and generate more quick-strike chances.
“They have been [playing] at a slower pace, so we’re going to have to put some things in to speed them up,” he said. “We’ll probably speed them up past where we want them to go, then we’ll slow them down a little bit, just so we can get them into certain habits.” (Hornacek’s first team in Phoenix, during the 2013-14 season, began at a blistering pace in October and November before slowing considerably in December and January.)
It’s rare for a team as old as these Knicks to significantly increase their pace. So youth will be a critical factor. Rookie point guard Jerian Grant, who was likely to get a shot at a starting role next year anyway, is a quicker, more athletic option to run Hornacek’s offense than the aging Calderon, though Calderon is a much better shooter. Hornacek has suggested it would be ideal to have a player who bridges the divide between the two.
The Knicks already have such a player on the roster: Tony Wroten, whom they signed in March.
Next season will be Wroten’s fifth in the NBA, but he just turned 23 years old in April. So he has experience, but with considerable room to grow. He’s used to playing fast—his 2013 76ers team was the fastest, relative to average NBA pace, the NBA has seen in six years—and he takes a quarter of his shots within the first six seconds of the shot clock, where his field-goal percentage has been nearly 20 points higher than it is in other situations, according to NBA.com.
Wroten, who has endured years of knee problems and his currently rehabbing his right knee to prepare for summer training, has the sort of driving ability that would appeal to Hornacek. If there’s a concern with him (other than injuries and shooting), it’s his tunnel vision once he finds a lane to the basket. Among the 37 players who drove six times a game or more in 2013-14, Wroten’s only full season, the ex-76ers guard finished last by a wide margin in pass percentage, finding a teammate just over 10% of the time after breaking down the defense, per SportVU tracking technology. (He also would have finished last among regulars in 2014, when he passed ball while driving just 14.5% of the time.)
“In this game, you’ve got to be a good passer. If you’re not a good passer, you’re not going to help the team win,” Hornacek said last week, speaking generally about his offense. “We really try to emphasize passing ability of the guys, and hopefully it’ll lead to some easy buckets.”
Wroten may well be the Knicks’ key to playing a more up-tempo style. But even if he is, it will take Hornacek considerably longer than it took him in Phoenix to bring the Knicks up to speed.
