Knicks Practice Roundup 10/02/17—Frank Ntilikina Hurt His Groin, May Miss Some Time

Look, before we get to the bad news I’d like to point out something I noticed from Sunday’s practice highlight package that the Knicks tweeted out:

Fast forward to the 1:24 mark. Michael Beasley’s throwing form on that t-shirt toss is flawless. Any football team from the New York area looking for a quarterback?

Ok, now for the bad stuff.

After New York’s relatively successful and injury-free open scrimmage on Sunday afternoon, the Knicks were back at practice on Monday. It went well until it didn’t. Everything was all roses and rainbows until Frank Ntilikina hurt himself.

Oh no!

The rookie, who had Knicks fans buzzing over his good showing the day before, is injured again and could be at risk of missing at least the first preseason game Tuesday night against the Nets.

According to ESPN’s Ian Begley, however, Frank isn’t worried:

Frank Ntilikina believes the groin issue that kept him out of part of the Knicks' practice today is minor. "I just got groin tightness, soreness during practice. It was just precautionary to leave practice and reevaluate it tomorrow. I feel fine," he said. "I'm not worried about it." Ntilikina obviously wants to play in the Knicks' preseason opener Tuesday against Brooklyn, but adds, "It will be what's best for the team."

That sounds like someone who understands his prognosis, but is willing to listen to what the medical staff has to tell him. There is, of course, some precedent here. Ntilikina missed the entirety of the SummerKnick season.

It would be nice to finally be able to see him play against “live” competition, but it’s also in the Knicks’ best interest to see him get in there when he’s healthy as can be.

More than anything else, this messes with the preseason point guard competition.

Ideally, Jeff Hornacek would have Frank, along with Jarrett Jack and Ramon Sessions healthy and ready to battle it out in the preseason to determine the pecking order at the 1. Frank was proooobably the favourite to start out the season as the starter. Evaluating the team’s assets at the position is rather difficult without him there.

Luckily, though, this doesn’t seem to be serious and one would hope he can get back on the court soon.

Also, lol at the Knicks trying to fan the flames with this video:

The second piece of news to come out of Monday is this, according to Begley:

Last season, Jeff Hornacek and the Knicks coaching staff gave veteran players the opportunity to give input on how opponents should be defended. "We're not doing that this year," Hornacek said Monday. "When we go to shoot around that (defensive) plan will be in place. We'll know the adjustments, instead of trying to give the guys the idea, ‘Hey, you guys play, you guys know these guys. What's the best way to do it?'" Hornacek added that he may have made a mistake in giving players that leeway last season. "I played on teams that had great veteran players. We had a basic thing, but most of the time it was, ‘Okay, I'm going to be doing this, you're going to be doing this and we worked it out.' That's maybe what I thought we'd be able to do last year with the guys. But that's, we found out that didn't work the best for us. This year we worked all summer to try to figure these things out."

Yeah, that sounds fine to me. Plus, as was reported last week, the Knicks don’t have a designated defensive coordinator anymore! Might the Knicks actually be good at defence this year? No. But they might be better!

The last piece that is of any import is that it may be Doug McDermott to his friends, but it will be Douglas McBuckets to us, the laypeople.

Before I sign off, I would like to, on behalf of all of us at Posting and Toasting, offer up my condolences and sympathies to the families of all people touched by the mass shooting in Las Vegas this morning.

Violence is bad, basketball is good.