Good morning, and greetings from the Caribbean! Hopefully as you’re reading this, I’m enjoying a mai tai somewhere far away from the closest wifi signal. Unless any massive Knicks news breaks, you won’t be reading about it here until next week.
Before we get to the next entrant on the Knicks 100, we have to start with the last piece of significant NBA news this offseason…
Well this is going to be interesting.
In what he says will be the final decision of his illustrious career, LeBron James shocked the NBA world by opting to spend his final year(s) in the City of Brotherly Love. He says his choice was motivated first and foremost by winning, which of course means going through the team that just won the whole damn thing.
There are no shortage of questions in the wake of this move, both where the Knicks are concerned and otherwise. Before we even get to how the Sixers match up with other top teams, two big issues need to be sorted out:
What will the pecking order be among four players used to having the ball in their hands a majority of the time (not to mention second-year guard VJ Edgecomb, who was probably looking for more shots, not fewer).
Can a team built around two small guards, a 41-year-old, and a center with chronic knee issues ever approach championship-level defense?
The second question arguably makes Joel Embiid the most interesting man in the NBA this season, both as a player and a trade candidate. Oft cited as the worst contract in the league, is there a world where the Sixers end the Process for good and ship Embiid and draft assets to Washington for unhappy Klutch client and former LeBron running mate Anthony Davis? If the Sixers are truly all-in on ending a title drought that’s older than their newly signed forward, it can’t be ruled out.
One step at a time though. First, the Sixers have to navigate an offense that now features two of the top five scorers in the league last year, not to mention two former MVP’s. Even with some spacing and usage concerns, my guess is they’ll figure things out eventually, although as we know here in New York, making everyone happy isn’t always a smooth process. Defensively, I don’t see a workable formula that doesn’t involve moving on from Embiid, but maybe LeBron can show him a few tricks to turn back the clock.
Putting aside the specifics, this move only adds intrigue to what was already shaping up to be a fascinating title defense. Indiana, New York’s fiercest rival, will be back, and arguably better off with Ivica Zubac in place of Myles Turner. Kawhi (we think) will join old friends RJ and IQ in Toronto. The Pistons still think they have the Knicks’ number. Mitchell Robinson is a Celtic. The Cavs are still hanging around. The Hawks have improved. Giannis had to settle for South Beach after access to Manhattan was closed off.
And now, LeBron James has given the Sixers the second best odds to win the East.
It’s fitting that James returned to the conference he used to call home just in time for New York’s repeat bid. He has been linked to the Knicks more than any franchise in the NBA except those he’s played for, often as a tormenter and sometimes as a potential savior, but rarely as a rival. He is now, except for the first time, he won’t be holding the upper hand.
We won’t have to wait long for the fun to begin. Opening night is less than three months away.
“Some very questionable shots from Jordan Clarkson…”
“Clarkson, just heaving them up there. He has taken some bad shots here in the first half…”
“Clarkson’s gonna shoot, no question about it. Comes up short…”
“Clarkson steps back, throws up a brick…”
“Clarkson, just a lot of dribbling tonight…”
For anyone who watched the game between the Knicks and Jazz on New Year’s Day 2025, those calls from Mike Breen will remain forever etched in our brains.
In three decades of listening to Breen call games, I’ve never heard him as aggrieved as he was that night. It was as if Clarkson had desecrated the temple of the sport he loved and he didn’t quite know how to respond.
In fairness to Clarkson, he was playing for a 7-25 Utah team that intentionally tanked away their season from opening night. This is a man who had played in the NBA Finals and later won 6th Man of the Year for a top seed. Now here he was, plying his trade for a team doing everything they could to lose. It was like asking Michelangelo to apply primer to drywall.
Fast forward a little more than a year. For as much as his signing in New York was celebrated, there were still questions about how the 11-year vet would fit in. Perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised when Clarkson lost his rotation spot by MLK Day. Maybe it was one too many bad habits that set in over those last few years in Utah. Maybe age had finally caught up to him. Or maybe the Knicks were just too deep and didn’t need his skill set as much as they originally thought.
Whatever it was, with New York mired in a 2-9 slide and Clarkson posting a 44 effective field goal percentage in the first nine January games, he was benched. JC didn’t see the court until the fourth quarter against the Nets on January 21, and that was only because the Knicks were up by 32 points. One night later, he was a DNP-CD.
Clarkson would play sparingly over the next seven weeks, but only when someone ahead of him was banged up. Then, after giving him just 28 minutes of action over the previous 11 games, Mike Brown decided to dial double zero with the Knicks in Jordan’s old stomping grounds and Josh Hart nursing a sore knee.
On March 11 in Utah, Clarkson turned back the clock, scoring a season high 27 points on 10-of-15 shooting as New York won handily. Far more importantly, he tied a career-high with five offensive rebounds and began to pen an alternate future for himself – one Mike Brown (or Mike Breen) probably wouldn’t have believed possible earlier in the season.
We know what happened next. Over the final 16 games, Clarkson posted the highest individual net rating of anyone in the rotation, but that wasn’t the most impressive part. Their defense improved by over seven points per 100 possessions when he played, and they grabbed over 40 percent of their own misses whenever he was on the court – more than any of his teammates, including rebound fiend Mitchell Robinson. During their playoff run, Clarkson pulled down 3.3 offensive rebounds per 36 minutes, which was second among rotation guards throughout the NBA, trailing only the uber-athletic Ausar Thompson. He also provided the Knicks with a necessary release valve, getting them a key bucket or two in almost every victory, including Games 4 & 5 of the Finals.
It was an impressive enough run to beg the question: is a three-month stint as a vitally important 9th/10th man on a championship team enough to rank Clarkson among the 100 greatest players in franchise history? I say yes, for a few reasons…
First, this single postseason already places Clarkson within the top 100 for postseason minutes (93rd), postseason points (83rd) and postseason offensive rebounds (an astounding 47th, tied with Allan Houston despite playing about nine percent as many minutes), so it’s not like he’s unqualified.
Second, I think there’s a fair argument that the Knicks don’t win the championship without him. Not only was he a vocal leader who was beloved within the locker room, as Fred Katz noted to me on Katz & Shoot a few weeks ago, but they didn’t really have anyone else on the roster who brought his specific skill set. They needed his tough buckets, his hustle, and his fearlessness when it mattered most.
Which brings us to the third point: has any player in NBA history ever reinvented himself this deep into his career, in the middle of a season, to the extent that Clarkson did? It’s like he transformed from Michael Beasley into Dennis Rodman overnight. He had every right to mail it in once he found himself at the end of the bench, but the alternate ending we got instead is a testament to both Mike Brown and Clarkson himself.
Finally – spoiler alert – every other player who played at least as prominent a role as Clarkson on New York’s three championship teams appears higher on this list. Should a lack of service time really matter within a franchise where so many meaningless minutes have been played over the last 80 years?
As for the players in Clarkson’s range on the Top 100…
Readers may only be familiar with one of the names immediately ahead of JC, but it’s as good a time as any to get familiar with two of the notable forgotten men in Knicks history.
Ray Felix had the misfortune of coming along right after the franchise’s early heyday from 1951 to 1953, but they were still a .500 team during his five and a half year tenure. He even got a rogue MVP vote in 1957, placing him one spot behind his nemesis Bill Russell. Felix is without a doubt the most anonymous player to rank within the top 40 for win shares as a Knick (he’s 32nd), but because of the era in which he played and the fact that he was part of a single playoff victory, the big man finds himself down here.
A similar fate befalls Tom Gola, the first hall-of-famer on our list. Unfortunately for the Knicks, the majority of his career was spent in Philly, where he won a title as a rookie in 1956. He was still good when he arrived in New York (via trade that sent Willie Naulls and Kenny Sears to the Warriors), and was named a 1964 All-Star in his first full season here. It didn’t help the Knicks much though, who stunk to holy hell for the entirety of his three and a half year tenure.
Speaking of putrid basketball, Nate Robinson is the last former Knick before we get to our next entry at No. 81. All things considered, Robinson was among the handful of toughest players for me to rank. On one hand, he’s within the top 50 for all-time franchise minutes (48th) and points (43rd). It’s also not like his contributions didn’t contribute to wins, to the extent that anyone’s contributions could have helped those moribund teams. One thing I’ve taken to doing in ordering this list is looking at where a player ranks in win shares compared to minutes. Typically, this stat favors big men far more than guards, so for Robinson to rank 61st in win shares in fairly impressive.
On the other hand, he played in as many playoff games here as you and me. That makes him one of only eight players to appear on this top 100 without ever having made the postseason as a Knick, and five of those eight made at least one All-Star team in New York. I gave Nate a few bonus points for finishing third in 6th Man of the Year voting one season, but mostly he’s here because he gave fans something to get excited about when there was so much negativity around him.
Was 312 games of Nate Robinson playing mostly meaningless basketball worth more than 33 games of this version of Clarkson helping lead the Knicks to a championship?
By the slightest of margins, I think so.
COMING WEDNESDAY: Another newly crowned champion checks in at No. 81.
🏀
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”