Mitchell Robinson: Knicks’ Absent MVP?

Death, taxes — Mitchell Robinson? For the New York Knicks, that blank in the axiom has been long occupied by the lasting center but this season shows they might’ve taken him for granted.

Through the first decade of the 2024-25 NBA season, Robinson has more less occupied celebrity row at Madison Square Garden, taking in the Knicks’ early portions from a different kind of courtside seating. Ankle woes have sidelined the longest-tenured New Yorker, who has watched the Manhattanites in his place whiff on winning streaks and struggle to maintain last year’s torrid 50-win pace.

One of the most glaring absences in the early going has been Robinson, and not only because a guy who stands at 7-0 and 240 lbs. is hard to miss. In absentia, Robinson is putting the “V” in “MVP” for a Knicks team missing his services. Alas, he’s out until January after several ankle issues marred both last season and this one.

It’s easy to view Robinson as a weapon from a bygone era, as a derelict skyscraper that fulfills the traditionally accepted form of a basketball center: whereas most lasting interior men have adapted to the unspoken mandate that every man on the floor must be capable of scoring 30 on any given night, Robinson has stuck to the crowd-pleasers, camping out under the rim, grabbing misfires, meeting those brave enough to drive, and keeping the shots closer, often no more than 10 feet away.

Yearning for Robinson is not, or at the very least should not, be an indictment of Karl-Anthony Towns. Yes, the early returns on a sizable investment have been lackluster in the early going, at least in terms of results on the Eastern leaderboard, but Towns has mostly performed as advertised, at least on the offensive end.

The major number following Towns, however, is 91.4. Entering Tuesday’s showdown with the Philadelphia 76ers (7:30 p.m. ET, TNT), that’s the success rate opponents have had shooting against him at the rim (h/t Tim Bontemps of ESPN). While that number is somewhat flawed (as in it’s not always Towns’ man getting those points), the Knicks’ inability to stop easy doubles has thrown the defense into disarray, weathering one of head coach Tom Thibodeau’s cornerstones.

Even if the Knicks want to use Robinson on the second unit with Towns, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart standing as starting staples, his impact would be welcome in either capacity. Robinson was on historic paces in the offensive rebounding department before his first ankle injury shut him down in early December: through the first 14 games of the season, he was well on pace to become only the fourth player to average at least six offensive rebounds in a season, an elite brotherhood that already featured Moses Malone, Dennis Rodman, and Jayson Williams.

His impact, however, was felt in both traditional and advanced columns alike, helping the Knicks overcome early struggles from a Julius Randle recovering from medical procedures of his own and keep pace among the Eastern Conference’s elite.

View Robinson’s impact with the first nine games compared to the same timeframe this season below:

The unfortunate fact of the matter is also that the Knicks’ depth stars have not picked up the slack in Robinson’s absence: the team doesn’t fully trust second-round Ariel Hukporti yet while Jericho Sims has done solid in the plus/minus department (plus-12 in nine showings) but his lack of shooting (one try per game in just over an average of 13 minutes) makes Robinson (an already-paltry 3.4 tries per game in his career) look downright trigger-happy.

That places an excessive workload on Towns as he tries to get to learn a new system. It doesn’t even account for the fact that the Knicks mostly hesitated to account for Robinson’s absence until the very last minute (drafting Hukporti with the 58th and final pick, waiting until the countdown to training camp to trade for Towns), but what’s done is done.

Like so many of the Knicks’ issues, all New York can do is sit and wait when it comes to Robinson: he and the other injured Knicks (i.e. Precious Achiuwa, Cameron Payne, Landry Shamet) will probably return eventually and it’s generally agreed that chemistry woes eating at the newcomers will work themselves out.

But here’s to you, Mr. Robinson: the Knicks may love you more than you will know.

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