New York Knicks point guard Miles McBride isn’t the most popular point guard in the city.
That title goes to Jalen Brunson, but not every player can be the captain of the squad. Sometimes, players need to come in unexpected places, and that’s what McBride is for the Knicks.
Bleacher Report writer Grant Hughes named McBride the Knicks’ “best-kept secret” on the team.
“There might not be a more overlooked sniper in the league than Miles McBride, who drilled 41.0 percent of his triples in 19.5 minutes per game for the New York Knicks last season. And that’s not even his top skill! McBride’s ability to somehow withstand the cardiovascular shock of going from the fringes of the rotation to 40-plus minutes every night during the Knicks’ injury-hit stretch run was almost impossible to fathom,” Hughes writes. “The Knicks are now deeper than they were a year ago, so we’ll see if head coach Tom Thibodeau tries to test the limits of McBride’s stamina again. Even if he returns to a smaller role, the gritty guard deserves more recognition.”
McBride, who turns 24 next month, averaged 8.3 points per game this past season for the Knicks, which was a career-high for the third-year pro. He had been closer to the end of Tom Thibodeau’s bench throughout most of his career in the NBA, but when the Knicks were stung by the injury bug and traded away backup point guard Immanuel Quickley to the Toronto Raptors, McBride got an opportunity to move into the rotation and he made it impossible for the coach to move him out of it.
McBride represents scoring off the bench for the Knicks and he can run point when Brunson takes a seat. That is going to be a big role for a championship contender like New York, and if McBride can’t fill that by the trade deadline, the Knicks will seek a replacement.
However, considering the fact the Knicks had a chance to deal McBride to Brooklyn in the Mikal Bridges trade and chose to keep him shows that New York still values him and believes he can be a big part of the team in the upcoming season.
