No matter how you size up the Knicks’ rough opening, the same truth keeps staring back at them: this is not the start anybody expected. The season has already been a mess of uneven play and head-scratching mistakes, and that’s why the handling of Jordan Clarkson stands out so much.
Clarkson has not been a volume scorer for New York. He’s averaging 5.2 points per game, which doesn’t jump off the page.
But the deeper numbers tell a very different story. He leads the team with a plus-32 plus-minus, 12 points better than Landry Shamet’s plus-20.
The Knicks have posted a massive +38.1 net rating in the 43 minutes Clarkson has been on the floor, compared with minus-7.9 in the 245 minutes he’s sat.
That’s a tiny sample, and it comes with the usual caveats. Some of those minutes came against lesser opposition or in garbage time, and his numbers are helped by his one big night against the Bulls. Even so, Clarkson has done enough to make a stronger case for himself.
The version of Clarkson the Knicks are getting now is different from the old one. Because of the widely praised reinvention of his game, he’s no longer just a high-usage shot hunter.
He’s become more of a useful role player who can still catch fire and change a game in a hurry. That showed up in one of New York’s two wins this season on Wednesday night.
Against a Bulls team that let the game drift early, Clarkson helped flip the script in the second half. He scored 18 points on 7-for-11 shooting in only 17 minutes and was a major reason the Knicks walked away with the win.
Then on Friday night against the 76ers, he again gave New York a needed jolt and helped swing the momentum. In hindsight, it’s fair to wonder whether the outcome might have looked different if Mike Brown had gone to him sooner.
Instead, Clarkson’s role has stayed strangely small. Outside of that Bulls game, he has played just 25 total minutes across four games this season.
He also had a CD-DNP against the Pistons last week. He has topped 10 minutes only once and is averaging 8.6 minutes per game.
That’s what makes this so hard to square. The Knicks have plenty of players underperforming, and the bench has struggled to find any real rhythm.
Brown has even said he’s backing off plans to play Mohamed Diawara more because of the team’s early issues. If development is not the priority right now and getting back on track is, then Clarkson’s limited usage makes even less sense.
He’s not going to be perfect. None of the reserves are. But on a team that’s already fighting through one of the most disappointing starts in the league, it’s tough to explain why one of the few Knicks who has consistently looked effective is barely getting on the floor.
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