Knicks rookie RJ Barrett’s early NBA performance has been a mixed bag. Oddly enough, the two extremes of his polarizing production are two sides of the same coin. The good and the bad, so far this season, are tantalizingly intertwined for the third overall pick in the 2019 Draft. Through 22 games, the Maple Mamba is averaging a historically heinous 53 percent from the free throw line, on a historically impressive five free throw attempts per game.
This, for Knick fans, is a confusing contradiction to stomach. Optimism, always a scarce resource in these parts, is in particularly short supply heading into 2020, and the Barrett conundrum only deepens this scarcity.