Finding Frank Ntilikina

The Knicks need to look for the bright spots

It isn't Pollyanna-ish to think about the New York Knicks in positive terms, even after a 122-102 loss to the Detroit Pistons.

You'll be seeing this frame throughout the season in this space, and it is a basic one: this Knicks team simply isn't equipped to contend for a championship, and even a playoff spot looked to be out of reach before they started 1-7. The math gets daunting quickly. And all of that is just fine, considering what this season was going to be about: making sure that the veterans on short contracts didn't get in the way of developing the young guys.

For the season to succeed, RJ Barrett has to be better in April than he was in November. The same is true of Mitchell Robinson. If it is also the case for Kevin Knox and Frank Ntilikina, well, it really doesn't matter what the record is, the Knicks will have four young building blocks.

So tonight: once Robinson went out early with concussion-like symptoms, it wasn't going to be a game that went in the victory column. There's no backup answer for stopping Andre Drummond on this roster. There's just not. 27/12/7 reinforced this.

But Ntilikina, playing 38 minutes, was a two-way revelation. He hit five of seven shots, dished out four assists, blocked three shots with that remarkable length of his, and generally reminded everyone of what the Knicks hoped they'd get in him when Phil Jackson provided him to the team in his parting gift.

David Fizdale, never mistaken for a member of the Frank Ntilikina Booster Club, sounded positively giddy about Ntilikina postgame.

Now the Ntilikina debate sides have hardened. The skeptics point out, fairly, that this is one of a handful of encouraging performances in two-plus seasons. The boosters would counter that he hasn't had many opportunities in those times. I'm closer to the latter than the former: a sure sign of development is when a guy flashes a skill, or in this case, a useful combination of those skills.

1-7 is ugly. Again, though, that's not the proper metric to measure this team. By the Frank Ntilikina measure, Wednesday night was a good night.