MORE KNICKS: When talking rebuild Knicks fans, expect a lot of losses.
Strap in Knicks fans, and get ready for another long rebuild.
A little more than three years after Phil Jackson took over and promptly gutted the roster for his own process, the Knicks’ shuffled front office — featuring Steve Mills as team president and Scott Perry as GM — echoed many of the Zen Master’s talking points, minus the triangle. Mills and Perry are here to change the culture and test the theory that you can’t rebuild in New York.
“We want to build a team that centers on that group of guys growing together, which may take longer to do. It will take longer to do,” Mills said. “But I think it’s something the fans of New York are ready for and will accept.”
Mills added that the Knicks will, “take advantage of the fact we have our draft picks moving forward.” In other words, it’s okay to lose.
The goal, as repeatedly outlined by Mills in Monday’s press conference to introduce Perry, is to make all decisions based on three guiding principles: youth, athleticism and defense. If that leaves out bigmoney players like Joakim Noah, Courtney Lee and, of course, Carmelo Anthony, Mills has a new secondary role for those veterans — assuming they are still on the roster.
“They’ll still be important because young players only get better with veteran leadership,” Mills said.
Under Mills’ plan — just like under Jackson’s — Anthony is expendable.
“If Carmelo is with us, we will continue to develop our young players,” Mills said. “If he’s not here, we’ll continue to develop our young players.”
The Knicks didn’t exactly win the press conference Monday because the answers from Perry and Mills were so guarded, so clichéd, there wasn’t much to extrapolate. For example, Mills talked around a question about what went wrong the last three seasons with him as the GM, and what he might’ve learned from Jackson’s failures.
Pressed further, Mills reverted to his buzzwords — while alluding to the confusion about the direction that clouded Jackson’s tenure. Mills’ basic premise boiled down to this: as long as the Knicks have a plan and stick to it, it will work to build a culture and bright future.
“Some of the things that need to change is we need to have a very focused plan in terms of how we’re going to operate and how we’re going to move forward. And that’s why we decided to focus on youth, athleticism, those kinds of things,” Mills said. “Those are the things we need to do if we want to build a sustainable organization. That’s what we have to do, and obviously we’re in a situation now where that hasn’t been the case, and we’ve been part of it and have to take our portion of the responsibility for it. But we’re very clear in terms of how we want to see this organization and this team moving forward.”
In reality, not much has changed with the Knicks. Not on the surface, at least. The message from Mills was basically the same thing Jackson preached in his final press conference, just with a little more tact and less triangle. Mills has been either the team president or GM for the last four years, with the Knicks accumulating a 117-211 record during that stretch. Jeff Hornacek is still the coach. Carmelo is still on the trading block. James Dolan is still the owner. The front office staff — while subject to review by Perry, according to Mills — have not been changed. The only big difference is Perry, and his ideas require approval from Mills.
“I’m going to give Scott the room to make basketball decisions and make recommendations to me,” Mills said.
Perry, who left a position with the Kings for this five-year deal in New York, is well-respected throughout the league and was part of successful runs as an executive in Detroit and Seattle/OKC.
But his last rebuild in Orlando — which was plotted out not dissimilarly to the current Knicks plan — didn’t go so well. The Magic also emphasized youth and athleticism with Perry as the assistant GM from 2012 to this year. The results were ugly, with the Magic going 132-278 in five seasons.
Still, Perry was so coveted by Mills that the Knicks relinquished a second-round pick and cash considerations to get the 53-year-old out of his contract with the Kings.
Apparently Mills developed a trusting relationship with Perry while working as opposing executives. Mills said he had Perry on his initial list as GM after convincing Dolan that he should be elevated to team president following Jackson’s firing.
Mills first interviewed former Cavs GM David Griffin, who withdrew his candidacy for the GM job because, among other reasons, Mills’ presence wouldn’t allow for autonomy over basketball decisions.
Perry, who never previously held the GM job for an NBA team, seems less concerned about that dynamic.
“We’ve developed a friendship,” Perry said. “And I have complete trust in (Mills). I think we’re very much aligned in our thinking so I’m really excited about the prospects of spending time and working with him.”
Whoever is making the decisions at the Garden, it’s clear that winning today isn’t as important as winning in the future. It’s a process.
“I think long term we always want our team to be competitive, so when we put our team out on the floor, the guys are going to try to win games,” Mills said. “But how we’ll judge ourselves and how we’ll judge the team is how this group of guys are getting better month by month, game by game, year by year.”