The Knicks have avoided the rebuilding process for too long. Like their owner, James Dolan, they’re a franchise born on third base that has found themselves stuck in a pickle between first and second.
Being the NBA’s most valuable lesson franchise in arguably the most majestic location has its benefits, yet they are a colossal embarassment.
Wednesday’s maelstrom over Draymond Green equating shoddy executive behavior to slave ownership was overblown. Dolan will never be Secretary of Labor, but implying the existence of plantation mentality is a stretch.
Obscured by the faux controversy were Green’s more profound opinions about the Knicks odds of attracting future free agents.
“When you look at what’s going on now with the Melo situation in their organization and now how you do a legend in Charles Oakley, I don’t know a free agent that would want to go there. I don’t know someone who would really want to go there.” Green opined on his Dray Day podcast.
The hubris of this franchise has led them to believe they can outkick their coverage in courting superstars. Phil Jackson was a mismatch from the beginning. He had no prior front office experience and his strength as a coach was pushing already assembled championship-caliber cores over the hump.
His hiring convinced Knicks fans that the path to contention was merely a hop, skip, euro step and a jump away from the franchise’s nadir. It was only the latest in a long line of get a ‘chip quick schemes pursued by the Knicks in recent years.
Now, they find themselves in only a slightly better position than their moribund crosstown rivals in Brooklyn.
Perhaps the realization that the bridge to any marquee free agents has been torched, they’ll finally stop renovating their roster. Committing to a complete tank and rebuild from the bottom up instead of their current top down strategy is the wave of the future in this new NBA.
Since James Dolan assumed control in 1999, David Lee has been the only All-Star drafted or developed by the Knicks.
In 2004, Marbury was acquired in a trade that gutted the Knicks draft coffers. An unprotected 2010 first rounder which became Utah’s Gordon Heyward was included in that swindling.
Donnie Walsh’s 2008 trade of Zach Randolph and Jamal Crawford for flotsam that enabled their dreams of signing LeBron in 2010 was billed as a celebratory occasion.
Masai Ujiri pickpocketing Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari and Timofey Mozgov from New York’s roster for essentially Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups, who was amnestied later that year, looks even more ill-advised in retrospect.
The 2014 first round pick they surrendered became Philadelphia’s Dario Saric. Uiri wound up re-acquiring the Knicks 2016 first rounder with Toronto and took Jakob Poeltl ninth.
The only reason prized cornerstone Kristaps Porzingis fell into their laps is because Carmelo Anthony missed 40 starts the season prior due to a tear in his left patellar tendon.
And even then, he was booed and lambasted because he was considered too much of a project to fit into Melo’s championship window.
Most recently, the Knicks shelled out a hefty amount for Joakim Noah, Derrick Rose, Brandon Jennings and Courtney Lee to give the Cavs, Celtics, Raptors and Wizards a run for their money this season. Those are all acquisitions that never should have ben made.
New York won the first NBA lottery in 1985 kicking off an era of prosperity. Right now, the Knicks are just outside the top 10 in a loaded lottery, but their best course of action is to finally invest in a youth movement.
