Knicks’ Miles McBride can do something no New York player has done in a decade

The New York Knicks were up 30 points in Friday’s game against the Indiana Pacers when Ariel Hukporti checked in. This was the epitome of garbage time. There was less than six minutes left, and the crowd inside Madison Square Garden had shifted their attention to their cellphones for the final innings of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Hukporti had every reason to be checked out himself. The game was over; yet, as the second-round rookie prepared to step onto the court, Miles McBride wanted to make sure he understood the importance of what was in front of him.

“Make the most of these minutes,” McBride said to Hukporti. “That’s how I earned it. In this little time, that’s how he builds trust.”

“Make the most of these minutes…That’s how I earned it…In this little time, that’s how he builds trust”

–– Deuce McBride to Ariel Hukporti pic.twitter.com/9pA6EUnWRC

— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) October 26, 2024

“He” is head coach Tom Thibodeau, and no minutes with him are wasted. McBride knows from experience. The fourth-year guard went from barely playing his first two seasons to becoming a staple in Thibodeau’s rotation, all because of his development behind the scenes.

“Every time he was called upon, he was ready,” Thibodeau said. “I think it was a byproduct of the work ethic. When he went down to the G League, he played really well. Anytime he was thrust into the rotation, he played really well in those situations.”

McBride is now quietly a pivotal piece for the Knicks, who are trying to end a 51-year championship drought. Many outsiders believe the team’s depth took a hit this offseason, and the 24-year-old is New York’s most reliable bench player. In this league, putting the ball in the bucket gets acknowledged, and McBride does that a lot. He has a real opportunity to be the first Knick since J.R. Smith in 2013 to win the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year Award.

New York invested in McBride before it seemed cool to do so.

“From the front office down to the coaching staff and my teammates, there has been a lot of belief in me,” McBride said. “It gives me a lot of confidence to go out there and do what I do.”

The case could be made — based on what McBride has shown so far and, in turn, what his future projects to be — that he’s on one of the most team-friendly deals in basketball. New York’s “tour de we have a really smart front office” started toward the end of 2023, when it traded away RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley and signed McBride, a 2021 second-round pick, to a three-year, $13 million extension, despite him not having a consistent role on the team up until that point. Surely, McBride would command and get a lot more today if he entered the open market.

The belief, though, doesn’t stop there. This past summer, when the Knicks traded for Karl-Anthony Towns, part of why they were able to stomach giving up Donte DiVincenzo in addition to Julius Randle is because of how much they believed in McBride, and because of the statements he made last season and during the playoffs, most notably as a scorer.

McBride spent a good portion of this offseason sidelined after undergoing toe surgery and wasn’t really able to get back on a court until August. But you wouldn’t be able to tell he got a slow start based on how he began this campaign. In three exhibition appearances, McBride averaged 17.3 points while hitting 10 of 27 shots from 3 (37 percent). McBride’s efficiency across the board has jumped from the preseason to the first two regular-season games — small sample size, I know — as he’s made 11 of his 14 field goal attempts and six of his seven 3-pointers. Last year was the foundation for what McBride looks to as an efficient scorer, and it appears a bigger role and more minutes will only shed more light on the type of scorer he has the potential to be.

New York’s bench will need it.

“Realistically, the people that say (we lack depth) are casual fans or don’t watch the league every night,” Josh Hart said, prior to the injuries to Landry Shamet and Precious Achiuwa, about the Knicks’ bench. “They might not know these guys because they might not be a mainstream or household name. … We have good guys who are willing and able to step up if they need to.”

What will help McBride become a more established name and into the conversation for a postseason award is his ability to score in various ways and play with different lineups. Last season, McBride was top 30 in the NBA in catch-and-shoot efficiency (minimum 2.8 attempts per game), per NBA.com, with a 42.1 conversion rate. He also shot better than 40 percent on all pull-up jumpers. This season (again, small sample size), McBride is the only player in the entire NBA to take at least five pull-up jumpers and not miss. He can score in various ways off the dribble, and when you look at the history of sixth-man winners, his archetype is the common thread among the vast majority of them.

“We tracked all of the shooting his rookie year, and we saw the volume, number of shots and accuracy,” Thibodeau said. “We thought it would translate, and it has. There weren’t any shortcuts to it. He’s put a lot of work into it and prepares himself well.”

McBride isn’t a one-trick pony. He’s a very good point-of-attack defender. Despite only being listed at 6-foot-1, the guard has a 6-8 (and some change) wingspan the length of the M train. That combination and his natural tenacity to pressure the ball puts McBride in a different conversation from the many guards who have taken home the Sixth Man of the Year Award over the last 20 years.

“I won’t give him that satisfaction,” Jalen Brunson jokingly said during the preseason when asked what it’s like to be guarded by McBride.

If New York gets to where it wants to this season, or anywhere near it, McBride’s scoring prowess and efficiency, while in a bigger role, likely will be a major reason why. But that’s what the Knicks signed up for. That’s why they committed to McBride before it made sense to others.

McBride has this opportunity because of what he did when no one was watching — which is why there was no better person to get in Hukporti’s ear Friday night. Now the whole world is watching McBride and the Knicks as they embark on the most anticipated season for this franchise in quite some time.

(Photo of Miles McBride: Brian Babineau / NBAE via Getty Images)