Knicks need star executive before falling further behind
NEW YORK — Here is the reality for our Knicks, who have turned last year’s regular season into a distant memory before we even finish up with this one: It has taken Leon Rose, who was supposed to clean up the mess he inherited from his predecessors, hardly any time at all to create a mess of his own, and a big one. His players should be this quick.
It was in the spring of 2021 that the Knicks came riding into the playoffs for the first time in eight years, as the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference, not just bringing noise back into Madison Square Garden, but hope. Then the Knicks did what they always do, on the rare occasion when they do manage to make it to the playoffs:
They lost to the Hawks. Five games. Now they are where they are, in a freefall that basically began in January. So when this season is over, barring some kind of miracle, it is going to be nine years since the Knicks won a playoff series, against the Celtics, spring of 2013. It happens to be the only playoff series they have won in this century.
Pause for a beat now, let that sink in, because sometimes it is difficult to wrap your mind around just how bad things have been at the Garden in this century, and how bad the organization has been.
One playoff series victory. Twenty-two years.
By the way? They have made it to the playoffs only six times in this century:
2000-2001: They lose to the Raptors in the first round.
2003-2004: They get swept by the Nets in the first round.
2010-11: They get swept by the Celtics in the first round.
2011-12: They lose to the Heat in five games.
2012-13: They beat the Celtics in six games and then lose to the Pacers in six games and then there is all the waiting until the Hawks series last year. When they lost to the Pacers in ‘13, they lost Game 1 at home and never managed to recover. Then they lost Game 1 to Trae Young and the Hawks and never recovered.
Their combined total, all in, are 35 postseason games. They have won 10 of them. It means that they look about the same when they do make it as far as the postseason as they do in the regular season.
And at this point in the proceedings, raise a hand if you think the management team of Rose and William (World Wide Wes) Wesley is the one to come up with
a vision and plan to get them out of this. Rose could start by taking a seat in front of the media and answering questions, which is the way big guys are supposed to do it in the big city. He came here as an agent. As a deal-maker. Now no Knick fan anywhere has any idea what the deal is with Rose, other than him talking about as much as the retired jerseys in the rafters.
The Knicks aren’t only bad again. They have amazingly bad luck, unless you think it was good luck that they were one pick away from getting Ja Morant, who would have changed everything at the Garden. RJ Barrett, who came next, has shown terrific promise this season. He isn’t close to being the player that Morant is.
Add that to the fact that no matter who is in charge, they don’t know who to draft when the play isn’t as obvious as it was for Barrett. So they go for Frank Ntilikina. Then for Kevin Knox. You see how much good the two of them did for the Knicks. But maybe that isn’t the worst news for the Knicks, less than a season after they shocked the world by going 41-31. The worst news is that the Eastern Conference is loaded again, with big names like Giannis and Kevin Durant and Dr. Kyrie Irving, the vaccine specialist, and James Harden and Joel Embiid and Jimmy Butler and Jayson Tatum. And DeMar DeRozan. And Trae Young. The Knicks don’t have a star player comparable to any of those guys, or one on the horizon.
And forget about the bigger names? Whose roster do you like better, the Knicks’ or the one they’ve put together in Cleveland with Evan Mobley and Darius Garland, even without Collin Sexton this season.
Rose and Wesley aren’t going to get them out of this. They need a star executive right now even more than a star player, maybe like the Thunder’s Sam Presti. Ten months since Game 1 of the Hawks series. Feels like 10 years at the Garden, where everything old is new again.