What Does Success Look Like For Frank Ntilikina?

NEW YORK -- No one is doubting that the last few games, particularly Friday night's performance in Dallas, have changed the trajectory for Knicks guard Frank Ntilikina.

The question is: just how much? What does it all mean? How is success measured for Ntikilina going forward?

I posed that question to David Fizdale prior to Sunday night's game against the Cavaliers, and his answer mostly came down to: keep doing it.

That, of course, is easier said than done. And against Cleveland, Ntilikina was not the two-way force he'd been. But that is the nature of development. It is neither linear nor best extrapolated from one game.

So sure, a repeat of his best game, over and over, would be great. But what kind of real benchmarks exist for Ntilikina? He talked about it with me Sunday night, and the mindset he's bringing sounds more about repetition of key skills than stats, at least personal ones.

What's interesting, looking inside the numbers of these last two games, is that (pardon the noise) there aren't a ton of indicators that Ntilikina changed the game. He's actually at a negative net rating over those two contests, per NBA.com.

But the noise in such small samples overwhelms the signal--again, the larger trends with Ntilikina are more evident in his season-to-date numbers. The Knicks are better offensively with him on the floor, and for the season, he is north of 40 percent from three.

A combination of those two numbers writ large over this season would be as useful a measure as any that the defensively gifteb Ntilikina has become the two-way starter at point guard the Knicks need.

As for what it will mean for the Knicks, well, Fizdale isn't quite ready to call it a redefinition of this team's ceiling.

"That's a tough question for me to answer," Fizdale said, noting that he considers point guard his team's most important position. "I want them all playing well."