New Knicks head coach David Fizdale said point guards Emmanuel Mudiay, Frank Ntilikina and Trey Burke will "fight it out" to see who starts, adding he sees each of them having a role with the team in the 2018-19 season.
"I'm going to let them fight it out for who starts," Fizdale said on NBATV, according to ESPN's Ian Begley, "but I see all of them serving a purpose for the way I like to play."
Fizdale said he and the Knicks' coaching staff have been working with Mudiay on "some technical stuff," including his shot, but believes he has an explosive physical presence as a 6-foot-5, 200-pound guard.
"I see a guy who was drafted high in the lottery," Fizdale said, according to Newsday's Al Iannazzone, of Mudiay, who spent his first two and a half seasons with the Denver Nuggets before he was traded to New York last season. "It didn't work out in his first destination. But a lot of people would've drafted him where they drafted him."
Of course, Mudiay, who has averaged 10.8 points and 4.3 assists since entering the league, is going to be competing alongside Ntilikina, the Knicks' first-round pick in 2017 who averaged 5.9 points and 3.2 assists in 78 games as a 19-year-old rookie, and Burke, a 2013 lottery pick who averaged 12.8 points and 4.7 assists in 36 games with New York last season.
Fizdale has previously said he won't be "handing out" playing time, and while each point guard is 25 years or younger, said he will embrace the team's youth.
"Obviously we're going to have a super young team," Fizdale said last month. "I felt like why even disrupt the culture by handing something to a kid? Make them earn everything along the way is going to make them tougher. They'll become better teammates, they'll believe in what we're doing more, if they feel it's a fair shake."