Knicks Center Named Team’s X-Factor

New York Knicks center Mitchell Robinson is making his return to the rotation and starting lineup this season after missing 51 games with an ankle injury last year.

Robinson’s responsibility has grown considering the team lost Isaiah Hartenstein in free agency to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Given this role change, Bleacher Report writer Grant Hughes has christened Robinson with the title of team “X-Factor” for the upcoming season.

“New York has posted consistently poor effective field-goal percentages under Tom Thibodeau, making up for it with ridiculous offensive-rebound rates. Robinson is among the best offensive glass-crashers in the game (Hartenstein was excellent as well), and even a talent-infused version of the Knicks with Mikal Bridges and a healthy Julius Randle will probably still need those extra possessions to stick in the top 10 on offense,” Hughes writes. “Robinson, 26, has been injury-prone and not very scheme-versatile to this point in his career. He needs to play more than ever and also prove he can do more than wall off the rim on D if the Knicks are going to make good on their plans for contention.”

The Knicks would like for Robinson to be the solution at the center position because he is their best big man currently on the roster. Robinson has proven that he can work as a center, but maybe not in the way that the Knicks need him to with the lineup around him.

It will be a difficult transition for the Knicks to go from Hartenstein to Robinson, but the latter can work if he can work back into who he was before his ankle injury from a year ago. He doesn’t need to be a replacement for Hartenstein, but rather the best version of himself that he can provide for the upcoming season.

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