Obi Toppin: Where do we go from here?
The Knicks face a huge decision with the Rose regime's first lottery pick. What will New York do with Obi Toppin?
On May 26, 2021, Mike Breen, one of the great play-by-play announcers in the history of the National Basketball Association, made arguably his most famous call in recent memory.
Okay, that was a slight exaggeration. But this is a call every Knick fan reading this can remember distinctly. It was Game 2 of the Knicks’ first playoff series in almost 10 years, and the vibes were high. Obi Toppin, then just a fresh-faced rookie, had skated by drama-free despite a rocky rookie season. Any potential negativity was washed away by the overwhelming excitement of the “We Here” season, headlined by winning twice as many games as projected and getting a second-team All-NBA year out of Julius Randle.
The Randle Roller Coaster (far less fun than Disney’s “Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster”) has been so volatile that it’s easy to forget, but Toppin was actually drafted as his replacement. Fresh off a Naismith award-winning redshirt sophomore season, Toppin was seen as a more dynamic answer to Randle’s sometimes plodding style. Some even went as far as to describe Toppin as this generation’s Amar’e Stoudemire. The cherry on top? Toppin, born in Brooklyn, was a hometown kid. After a 2019-20 season that could generously be described as aimless, Knicks fans had reason to be excited again.
To call Toppin’s first two-and-a-half seasons “scattered” would be the understatement of the century. The vibes have remained strong, but mostly because of what we don’t know, rather than what we do. Toppin has shown flashes. He is an otherworldly athlete, capable of jumping out of the building he’s usually the fastest person inside of. Some people think that’s all he is. Those people are wrong. Toppin is one of the quickest processors you’ll see on an NBA court. The game moves slower for him than most players. You see it in how decisive he is in his actions, always one step ahead of a defense that has yet to even react.
Unfortunately, those flashes have been less frequent than you’d like to see from a third-year player. As we know, Randle followed up his disappointing 2020 with as big a turnaround as a player can have on the court. For most teams, this wouldn’t have disqualified Toppin from spreading his wings. But most teams aren’t coached by Tom Thibodeau, arguably the most rigid coach in the NBA. Thibodeau lives by a handful of rules. One of them is protecting the rim at all times. Thus, Randle and Toppin haven’t seen the floor much (just 209 minutes spent on the court together in 2.5 seasons).
All of this is to say that Toppin has been one of the least-prioritized lottery picks in recent memory. What we’re left with is an abundance of questions that should have been answered by now. Is Toppin a 4 or a 5? Can he handle starter’s minutes, or will his weaknesses be exploited? Can you run the offense through him as an initiator at all? And while both Thibodeau and Randle have come under scrutiny (much of which has been attributed to their roles in blocking Toppin from seeing the court), both have impressively evaded the bullets and settled into their roles for the Knicks organization. I feel about as comfortable as I have in over a year in saying that both Randle and Thibodeau seem likely to remain in their current roles, at least for the near future. Deservedly so, by the way.
So where do the Knicks go from here? Toppin is eligible to be extended as early as this upcoming summer. But with Randle and Thibodeau seemingly here to stay, how will that affect how the Knicks proceed? Does Toppin even want to stay and remain a good soldier in a role that feels destined to cap his ceiling? The way I see it, there are three options:
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