Knicks’ Rising Star in Line for an Increased Role in 2022-23: Report

Getty Immanuel Quickley of the New York Knicks reacts after a made basket against the Memphis Grizzlies.

Though they may not have any clear-cut stars within their arsenal, the New York Knicks are coming into the 2022-23 campaign with an incredibly deep and diverse roster.

From former All-Stars like Julius Randle and Derrick Rose to intriguing young prospects such as Quentin Grimes and Obi Toppin, the Knickerbockers possess a rotation that’s chock full of high-end talent just waiting to be unleashed.

And while an argument could be made for a bevy of the team’s talents that they should receive more playing time and a larger role, recent buzz suggests that third-year point guard, Immanuel Quickley, is the most likely player to be granted such a luxury.

In a September 16 article penned by SNY’s Ian Begley, the NBA Insider provided a few notes about New York’s rotational decisions as we rapidly approach the start of training camp, with the most noteworthy of the bunch being that all signs point to the 23-year-old seeing an uptick in minutes this year.

“Will young players (Cam Reddish, Quentin Grimes) play ahead of veterans (Derrick Rose, Evan Fournier),” Begley questioned. “Will the Knicks try to balance minutes of veterans and young players? Or will they lean toward veterans, as they did in the first half of 2021-22?

“Most of those questions are unanswered at the moment, but there is an expectation that Immanuel Quickley will get an increased role early on in 2022-23, per people familiar with the matter. Quickley averaged 27.5 minutes per game after the All-Star break. He had several strong outings as a playmaker in that time frame and several solid shooting stretches.

“So it makes sense for New York to give Quickley an expanded role early on in 2022-23.”

Ever since being selected with the 25th pick back in the 2020 NBA Draft, Quickley has only proven capable of shinning when on the floor and, with his opportunities, the point guard has managed to rack up stellar career averages of 19.9 points, 5.0 assists, and 3.1 threes per 75 possessions whilst shooting at a 36.5% clip from deep.

Quickley Stellar for Knicks Post All-Star Break

As mentioned by Begley, early on in the 2021-22 campaign the New York Knicks opted to lean heavily on their veteran talents, as their Cinderella story success of 2020-21 forced their hand into treating their follow-up season as if they were in a win-now mode.

Of course, this approach faded fast due to both injuries and lackluster production, and, in turn, as the year went on the team’s youngsters saw their minute distributions increase.

Quickley was one of the said youngsters and, with his bump in playing time, his production went on the rise.

Throughout the first 59 games of the season, the point guard struggled to find consistency within the rotation and boasted rather inefficient averages of 9.4 points, 3.0 assists, and 2.3 rebounds on just 36.8% shooting from the floor and 32.8% shooting from deep whilst logging 21.3 minutes a night.

However, during New York’s final 22 contests, Quickley’s playing time increased to an average of 27.5 minutes and he went on to post a whopping 16.0 points, 4.8 assists, and 5.2 rebounds per game on 43.6 shooting from the floor and 38.3% shooting from deep.

The guard would finish things off with a 34 point, 12 assist, 10 rebound performance in the team’s season finale, making him the youngest player in Knicks history to record a 30-plus point triple-double.

Rose Disrespected in Viral Tweet

With the tip-off to the 2022-23 season rapidly approaching, excitement is growing by the day when it comes to the potential that this New York Knicks squad has.

As mentioned, this roster has plenty of quality talents in tow that could help the club surpass their win total from last season and, as a result, have them contending for a top-eight seed in the conference standings come year’s end.

However, when the sports statistics company StatMuse recently tried to highlight New York’s current core rotation and discuss what their record could wind up being, when doing so they wound up forgetting to mention one of the most popular and beloved members of the organization in veteran guard, Derrick Rose.