Why the Knicks are the most fascinating team to watch in draft, free agency
By Yaron Weitzman
FOX Sports NBA Writer
In the fall of 2020, the top decision-makers for the New York Knicks convened for a meeting. The draft was about a month away and free agency would begin right after that. Leon Rose, the recently hired team president, was looking to outline his plan of attack.
The Knicks had three options. They could use their ample cap space to bolster a roster that had won just 21 games the previous season and cost Rose’s predecessor (Steve Mills) and his head coach (David Fizdale) their jobs. They could go the opposite route, punt the season and go asset hunting. Or they could try to find some sort of middle ground.
The group kicked the options back and forth. At one point, according to multiple NBA sources, it was advocated by Brock Aller, a vice president whom Rose had pried away from the Cleveland Cavaliers to be his chief strategist, that the Knicks emulate "The Process" undertaken by the Philadelphia 76ers and tank the season.
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This proposition enraged Tom Thibodeau, whom Rose had hired as head coach a few months earlier. Thibodeau didn’t do tanking. It just wasn’t in his DNA. In eight seasons as a head coach with the Chicago Bulls and Minnesota Timberwolves, he’d finished with a losing record only twice.
He’d also grown up a Knicks fan and waited his entire professional life for this opportunity. He had no interest in spending his first season on the job giving away games. In fact, according to league sources, he’d been urging Rose, his former agent, to sign free agents like Gordon Hayward and Marcus Morris to lucrative deals.
Thibodeau shot Aller down. He started deridingly referring to him as "Hinkie" after Sam Hinkie, the architect of Philly's plan.
"Who the f--- is Brock Aller?" he’d say to colleagues later on, when recounting the events of the meeting.
Rose, meanwhile, never did pick a side. The Knicks drafted Obi Toppin and Immanuel Quickley in the first round, but when it came to free agency, they basically abstained. They didn’t hand out any multi-year deals. They didn’t use their cap space to secure any additional draft picks or assets either. They signed players like Nerlens Noel and Alec Burks to one-year contracts and then hung up the phones and put their checkbook away.
In the short run, it didn’t matter. Thibodeau and the rest of Rose’s group have been adamant that the confrontation was nothing more than an example of a functional organization kicking around different ideas. And in the end, Rose and Co. put together a group that delivered a magical run.
The Knicks ended a seven-season playoff drought. They revived Madison Square Garden. Thibodeau won Coach of the Year. Julius Randle won Most Improved Player and, incredibly, was named second-team All-NBA.
But now, nearly one year removed from that tense meeting and with the 2021 offseason set to begin (the draft is Thursday night, free agency opens Monday at 6 p.m. ET), the Knicks find themselves in a situation similar, only this time with fewer options. They can’t tank, and mimicking last year's approach would feel less like abstaining and more like strategy.
Since taking the job, Rose has kept his cards close. The lone time he’s spoken to the media on the record was during a press conference to announce the hiring of Thibodeau. He doesn’t talk to reporters much off the record, either. He doesn’t share strategy with rival executives.
Everyone assumes his grand plan is to eventually leverage his connections with the shine of New York City to lure an A-lister, but no one outside the organization – or MSG’s C-suite – has anything but guesses for exactly who, when and how.
It’s unlikely we get those answers over the next few days, but we will get a clue as to what Rose’s timeline is and just how much juice and influence Thibodeau has. Actions may speak louder than words, but inaction can tell a story, too.
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That’s what’s going to make the Knicks one of the more fascinating teams to follow these next few days. We’re about to get our first true glimpse at Rose’s plan and to see which side of that Aller vs. Thibodeau debate he falls on.
The Knicks, if they want, can create $50 million in cap space by renouncing the rights to all their own free agents. They could then go big-game hunting, or at least toss money at starter-level players capable of filling some of the holes that revealed themselves during the team’s ugly first-round loss to the Atlanta Hawks. We can assume – given everything we know about Thibodeau – that this is the path Thibodeau would prefer and is likely pushing.
The problem is that there aren’t many stars on the market worthy of lavish deals. There’s Kawhi Leonard, but all indications are that he plans on re-signing with the LA Clippers. Plus, after he recently had surgery to repair a torn ACL, it’s unlikely he plays at all next season.
Chris Paul, Mike Conley and Kyle Lowry are all All-Stars – but also in their mid-30s. John Collins and Lonzo Ball are young and talented, but both are restricted free agents, meaning their respective teams have the right to match any offers. DeMar DeRozan is on his last legs.
There are some other intriguing options – Spencer Dinwiddie, Dennis Schroeder, Norman Powell, re-sign Derrick Rose, for example – but all players who, especially in a weak market, could require bloated offers. Those would be deals that, in theory, could hamper any future chasing of stars.
But what then? Are the Knicks, coming off a winning season, willing to sit out free agency and risk future criticism, especially if this year we learn that some of last season’s success was an aberration? And are they prepared to deal with the enhanced microscope and expectations that come with success and that have derailed the plans of so many past Knicks regimes?
Canvassing various executives, scouts and agents from across the league, most expect the Knicks to once again take the methodical approach.
They have four picks in the draft: 19 and 21 in the first round, plus 32 and 58 in the second round. They’d love to package a few picks to move up, according to reports and league sources. Also worth noting: Before last year’s draft, Leon Rose and his group decided that they didn’t want to add three rookies to the roster, according to league sources, which played a role in some of their draft day trades.
Could this be the case again this year?
After that, we know the Knicks would love to insert themselves into any Damian Lillard or Bradley Beal trade discussions. But so far, neither star has demanded a trade. We also know the Knicks need a point guard. And that they need to decide what to do with big man Mitchell Robinson, who is eligible for a contract extension. And how much they believe in Toppin and Quickley – last year’s rookies – and how good they think guard RJ Barrett can be.
Would they flip any of them for a starting point guard? Would they offer them all to Portland for Lillard?
Last year, Rose didn’t have to answer any of these sorts of questions. He could just sit back, let others duke it out, and kick the can down the road. He can do so again this year, but if he does, that would represent a specific choice. So would loading up the roster with players on multi-year deals.
Whatever the Knicks do, you can be sure it will be the loudest statement Rose will have made since taking the job.
Yaron Weitzman is an NBA writer for FOX Sports and the author of "Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports." Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman.