Let me hype you all up for this, life long Knicks fan here and the Cavaliers just became my 2nd favorite team. I grew to love this kid so much that if he gets consistent rotation minutes I'll be watching every single Cavs game.
I'm not being sarcastic in any way when I say the Knicks handling of Damyean Dotson is the most unforgivable thing that horrific franchise has ever done in my opinion. He was BY FAR the most consistent player the Knicks have had in the past few years in terms of on court production, and yet he consistently got screwed over by the mess we had in the front office and the coaching staff.
Dotson is an absolute sniper from downtown. 36% looks solid, but I promise you that he's 40% + when given consistent rotation minutes. Will go into that later. He plays some of the most ferocious on ball perimeter defense I've ever seen in my life. When Fizdale/Miller took their head out of their asses briefly, the combination of Ntilikina and Dotsons on ball perimeter defense was truly mesmerizing. As a fan theres nothing more frustrating than giving an open 3. I give you my word he may miss a handful of rotations in the entire season. He's absolute lockdown out there. He can get bullied down low a bit, but he always works, and he's got some nice hops so he'll rip down the boards when he gets space. He's insanely fast. Like truly will make you say wow with how fast he can get up and down the court. There was a camp story about him and Dennis Smith Jr having a race and he beat him. He plays within himself, some times to a fault by not being aggressive enough, but he always moves the ball quickly, always cuts hard, always looks to make the right basketball play. He didn't have much of a dribbling game when I first saw him in summer camp as a rookie, but that skill set improved a lot over the last few years. He's got a pretty filthy step-back that he doesn't use often because he looks to pass TOO MUCH and you can visibly see him not wanting to be a ball hog, but his confidence in his 1 on 1 ability showed some serious promise towards the end of last season.
Now, you read all this and I know you think I'm a delusional fan because it sounds too good to be true. A player that does everything he's supposed to and can't crack a consistent rotation on a lowly Knicks team? It was 100% because of instability of leadership and politics.
He finished strong 2 years ago and then got shafted out of the rotation by RJ's drafting, old ass Wayne Ellington and their lottery pick Kevin Knox (who truly is one of the worst NBA players I've ever seen) who got forced minutes the entire season because they couldn't admit they were wrong. As Ellington and Knox shit the bed the first few months of the season, Dotson finally gets a chance to get a measly 18 minutes a game and my man shoots 45% from downtown in a 20 game sample in January/February. And all the great defense and hustle and team oriented playing style that I mentioned earlier. Then, inexplicably, with absolutely no explanation given, Miller benches him and he never saw meaningful minutes again. Why? Some info eventually got out that "promises" were made to Wayne Ellington before the season who had fallen completely out of the rotation (despite being a 3 Pt specialist who shot 32% from downtown up to that point). Miller, an iterm 1st time coach, caved and gave the veteran the minutes. Yes, a team that was one of the worst in the league from downtown that was causing spacing issues affecting the development of RJ and Randle, benched another young asset that was shooting 45% with his opportunity. Thats how poorly that franchise is run. They've got the right people in place now thank God, but the past few years were such a complete disaster and Dotson was the #1 casualty of that.
I would guess the new management didn't resign him because they had Alec Burks lined up, but our loss is your reward Cavs fans.
Enjoy the prize. You'll love this kid. He was a fan favorite in my Knicks forums.
www.basketball-reference.com
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