The gift of Instagram Mitchell Robinson
With the league's competitive teams on a trip to Disney World and the Draft Lottery still over a month away, Knicks fans have little to hold themselves over with outside of the ongoing search for a new head coach. Thankfully, Mitchell Robinson is reigniting the buzz surrounding his potential with an assortment of Instagram workout videos that make him out to look like the next Kevin Durant. This is pure, unadulterated, quality offseason content, with every crossover and step-back three logged away as further evidence of his future as an All-Star.. or maybe more.
Above is but a taste of Robinson's pick-up displays, with a number of videos floated around of Robinson showing off his guard skills. Though seemingly not utilized against NBA-level talent, they are a departure from what we're used to seeing from Robinson. He's only taken three shots from beyond ten feet in his career, rarely handling the ball himself to the tune of an average touch time of 1.31 seconds, near the bottom of the league. His limited offensive scope of rim-running and clean-up buckets has paid dividends - he's on track to break Wilt Chamberlain's single-season field goal percentage record - but Robinson's posts from this COVID-induced hiatus don't hint so much as announce he's got way more in his bag.
How real is it, though? As mentioned the competition isn't what Robinson will be going up against once play resumes, these videos don't include any of his misses and anyone expecting him to pull out a shammgod this season is begging to be disappointed. However, there are some things to be cautiously optimistic about.
Let's begin with the shooting. Robinson regularly drains catch-and-shoot mid-rangers and threes in warm-ups, though the videos going up lean more towards the off-the-dribble variety. Prior to these videos there were already calls from intrigued fans for the Knicks to let Robinson take some spot-up jumpers. He's got a workable form despite the sheer extent of limbs he has to navigate with it, unfortunately his free-throw shooting numbers aren't translating: 60% last year and 56.8% this year. On the plus side his seven-foot frame and leaping ability will help against defenders closing out.
Onto dribbling, where it may take a couple seasons before a head coach is comfortable letting Robinson free to do his Durant impersonation. There's a clear disconnect between Robinson's size-up dribbles, which are getting low to the floor and seem much more controlled, and his attacking dribbles. These crossovers and hesitations don't really move guys off their spot and are way too high and wide to be effective currently. Even in these selective clips you can see Robinson struggle with control when he goes into full ankle-breaker mode.
But in combination with his size-ups, if he can bring that one-dribble burst of speed to league he'd limit his vulnerability to turnover and potentially burn guys in the short roll or from the perimeter. If there's one thing we know, Robinson has the length and bounce to dunk on half an opposing team from the dotted line. Even a slight bump in his ability to maneuver the court with his handle could make that very dangerous, as right now if he gets possession off the roll too far for a basket, the play usually dies.
However real Instagram Mitch may be, the Knicks would be silly not to let him somewhat experiment with this stuff in-game. Not that the DeAndre Jordan mold doesn't fit Robinson, but if there's a chance any of his guard skills could develop to an NBA level, it would be a waste not to see it through. Best case he belongs in the unicorn class of Kristaps Porzingis, Karl-Anthony Towns and Myles Turner, worst case he's back to being a normal super-enticing prospect. At the very least, allowing him to shoot the open three and utilize a quick dribble move out of the pick-and-roll or face-up would give us a sense if this is anywhere close to reality.
Maybe Knicks fans are overexcited as usual, exacerbated by boredom and years of disappointment. Or maybe Robinson is on the cusp of being even more special than we once thought. Much crazier has happened in 2020.