Mills should keep following ‘Seinfeld’ way
The Steve Mills era is off to an impressive start. How so? Because he’s done nothing. There is a genius to Mills’ lack of production in free agency less than a week after replacing Phil Jackson as the Knicks top basketball decision-maker.
As in no crazy contracts to broken down players or veterans coming here not to play but looking to experience New York life in the twilight of their careers.
If “Seinfeld” was the show about nothing, this is the free agency summer of nothing for Mills and the Knicks. And it’s perfect. The Knicks should rebuild. They have their first-round pick next summer and that should be their focus, as opposed to last offseason when Jackson signed Joakim Noah and Courtney Lee to try and snag eighth place in the East. How’d that work out? Eventually the Knicks will sign someone. It may even be a veteran but as long as that player is on a short-term deal that’s fine.
Mills is reportedly telling agents the Knicks want to go young. Smart. And one Knicks source claims that Mills is opposed to re-signing Derrick Rose. That’s interesting as well. You want to make the case that Mills is taking the patient/passive approach because he’s a novice at this and doesn’t want to damage his chances of being named Knicks president, that’s fine.
Remember, Mills was teflon under Jackson, who took most of the heat — and rightfully so — for turning the Knicks into a laughingstock.
Speaking of which, can we stop the nonsense about how Phil’s time wasn’t a total disaster. The same folks who trumpeted Phil’s arrival as Step 1 of making the Knicks a championship team again are now selling “well, it wasn’t a total dumpster fire.”
Please, spare us. Jackson was at odds with his two best players and was forcing his coach to play an offense that only three people in the world thought was good idea; Phil, Clarence Gaines and Kurt Rambis. Four, if you count Phil’s literary apologist Charley Rosen.
Anyway, Phil took the heat off Mills, who now finds himself on the hot seat. And this is where things get interesting.
As the Daily News reported on Friday, Mills is trying to become Knicks president. The play for Mills is to convince Garden chairman James Dolan that he should oversee the business and basketball side of the club. Under this plan, Mills hires a general manager to run the day-to-day operations and report directly to him.
The guy did go to Princeton. Mills ain’t dumb.
The idea is for Mills to distance himself from Jackson, which he can pull off.
It may be a little tougher for Jeff Hornacek, who by the end of the week will be trying to convince reporters that he and Kristaps Porzingis plan to vacation together this summer.
Hornacek’s relationship with Porzingis isn’t great, despite what the coach now says. And it certainly didn’t improve once Porzingis’ favorite assistant coach, Josh Longstaff, was fired.
Hornacek has a lot of work to do to regain Porzingis’ trust. And it’s a little too late in the game to say that the skipped exit meeting