Welcome to "Summer Workout Plan," our annual offseason series in which we dive into a specific area for improvement for certain players to take the next step in their development.
Knicks forward RJ Barrett is the next player to take the spotlight.
RJ Barrett made big strides last season, and guess what? He still has plenty of room for growth.
Three years removed from the Knicks selecting him with the No. 3 pick in the draft, Barrett averaged 20.0 points per game in 2021-22. Not only was that up from 14.3 points per game in his rookie season and 17.6 points per game in his sophomore season, but it put him a hair behind Julius Randle (20.1) for most on the Knicks.
The next step for Barrett is to become a more efficient scorer. While he took a step in the right direction in 2020-21, he shot only 40.8 percent from the field last season.
Where Barrett can improve the most: Barrett's drives have increased each season he's been in the NBA, but he's still not an efficient finisher around the basket.
According to NBA.com, Barrett was one of 111 players who attempted at least 200 shots in the restricted area during the 2021-22 season. He made just 54.9 percent of those opportunities, only Hornets guard LaMelo Ball finished them at a worse clip.
Additionally, Barrett had his shot blocked a total of 105 times, the most in the league. The majority of those came in the painted area.
That makes for a whole lot of red on the shot chart.
In Barrett's defense, who the Knicks surrounded him with didn't exactly help.
According to The BBall Index, the lineups Barrett played in graded out as an F for spacing. New York was particularly light on shooting in the frontcourt, as neither Mitchell Robinson nor Nerlens Noel is a threat to score outside of the paint, and Julius Randle went from converting a career-best 41.1 percent of his 3-point attempts in 2020-21 to 30.8 percent in 2021-22.
The result? Situations like this, where Barrett drove into a crowd:
That's not to say Barrett doesn't have room to improve as a finisher, because he does. He's not the quickest or most explosive player at his position, so he'd benefit from adding some more craft to his game.
Who Barrett can learn from: Barrett could pick up a thing or two from Heat star Jimmy Butler.
Butler isn't much of a shooter, and yet there isn't much of anything anyone can do to stop him from getting to the rim when he wants to. What he lacks in speed and explosiveness he makes up for with his strength, skill and balance. He's not someone defenses can speed up easily, and he uses every tool he can to create an advantage.
For comparison, Butler got his shot blocked on 4.9 percent of his attempts in the restricted area last season compared to 14.5 percent for Barrett. It wasn't like Barrett got there much more than Butler either. He averaged 6.3 shot attempts per game in the restricted area compared to 5.4 for Butler, and he was almost three times more likely to get it sent back.
One thing, in particular, Butler does well is use his size to overwhelm smaller players. It's not unusual to see defenders bounce off of him on his forays to the basket.
And when he drives, he drives hard.
At 6-foot-6 and 214 pounds, Barrett has the size to play through contact as well, but he doesn't absorb it in quite the same way Butler does.
Bigs have an equally tough time keeping up with Butler because of how comfortable he is playing at his own pace.
Barrett took a more predictable approach when faced with the same matchup.
Butler is also an incredibly smart player. He can be a little too selective at times, but he reads the defense well and rarely forces the issue.
Barrett, meanwhile, has admitted that his eyes are sometimes bigger than his stomach.
“I’m going to the rim. I’m stubborn. I’m a stubborn kid. I’m a stubborn kid, yeah," Barrett told The Athletic's Fred Katz. "I’m going to the rim. Even if a 7-footer is down there, I can score over him. Sometimes it doesn’t work and sometimes it does. … But I gotta continue to get better at those opportunities, just making the right play, finding my shooters. Number one, finding my shooter in the corner.”
It's plays like this — trying to score on the 7-foot Robin Lopez rather than kicking it out to a wide-open Miles McBride with almost 10 seconds remaining on the shot clock — that he's likely referring to:
Cut even a few of those out, and Barrett's percentages could look quite different. Probably not to the point where he's among the best finishers in the NBA, but a little will go a long way as he looks to become a more efficient scorer.
