Knicks take positive steps after Phil era

To fully appreciate the levels the Knicks have graduated, you have to remember what Steve Mills and Scott Perry inherited. The Knicks, under Phil Jackson, were a laughingstock. They were the butt of jokes at the NBA awards show, the subject of a denigrating ad campaign on a NYC subway and at war with LeBron James for reasons that had nothing to do with basketball. High-profile players were openly trashing the team owner and president, which is so rare it took a recorded racist rambling for evil slumlord Donald Sterling to finally fall under such a microscope. Reggie Miller summed up the Knicks’ misery with a tweet in February.

“If you’re a FA to be, why would you play for an Owner who treats the past greats like this or a President who stabs star player in the back?” Miller wrote.

Only on a flat Earth would a top player want to join the Knicks in the summer of 2017 (Kyrie Irving). So the front office pairing of Mills and Perry deserves credit, already, for restoring a sense of direction, purpose and appeal.

That’s not to suggest they’ve created something worthwhile yet. It’s too early for even the midterm grades, and the real test won’t arrive until the schedule gets road-intense in January.

But if the first goal was to dissipate the cloud of dysfunction — to distance themselves from three years of Phil Jackson folly — mission accomplished. Think about where they’ve gone from where they started.

l In case you forgot, Kristaps Porzingis skipped his exit interview and wanted nothing to do with the Knicks. He conducted his offseason workouts away from the team as Jackson was publicly fielding trade offers for the Latvian. When Porzingis’ brother, Janis, met with Jackson in the offseason, it only reinforced the chasm and the idea that a trade was more likely than a longterm commitment. But from every indication lately, Porzingis is satisfied with the direction of the Knicks and the way he’s being embraced as the featured offensive player. He wanted to see better from the Knicks. So far, Porzingis has.

l Jeff Hornacek is now coaching without intrusion, which is the type of freedom he wasn’t afforded under Jackson. Really, it’s a nobrainer and the only way to operate as a team — with the coach having autonomy to coach. Hornacek, as a result, has found a nice balance between competing and developing. The focus no longer is about creating an identity from a system, but rather progressing from effort. That’s a language all NBA players can understand.

l Mills and Perry managed to hit the trifecta with the Carmelo trade. They avoided the circus by pulling the trigger just a day before training camp. They accommodated one of Carmelo’s preferred destinations — even if it meant talking him out of Houston — and didn’t burn the bridge on the way out. They also retrieved two productive players and an early second-round pick, leaving the early impression that the Knicks might’ve won a trade for the first time since, who knows? The franchise hasn’t exactly hit any home runs since signing Allan Houston and trading Latrell Sprewell and Larry Johnson in the 90s.

l Among Jackson’s goals for establishing a positive culture at the Garden was to heal a contentious relationship with the media. That never happened. Jackson was aloof, at best, and hardly accessible. The longstanding policies never changed. But Mills and Perry have been much more communicative, and even jumped in front of a potential controversy by declaring support for Jeff Hornacek as the Knicks started 0-3. As a whole, there is much more of a concerted effort to establish goodwill with the media.

It’s a long way up from where Mills and Perry started. But at least they seem to be climbing the right path.