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The Knicks had just sullied their best-than-expected start with a home loss to the Miami Heat, but the most pressing topic on February 7 was an impending trade. A deal with the Detroit Pistons was set to position Knicks’ Tom Thibodeau to coach Derrick Rose for the third time.
The trade, however, was not yet official, so Thibodeau was not yet ready to discuss the player’s arrival with reporters – not even after their happy stints together in Chicago and Minnesota.
“As far as the roster goes, it’s a Leon question,” said Thibodeau, referring to Leon Rose, the Knicks’ team president.
It was quite the deflection of the defense-loving coach.
Leon Rose, you see, makes himself available to answer questions from the media much like an NBA executive running a front office never did. Tuesday will be a full year at work for Rose, who hasn’t even held an introductory press conference. Aside from a brief interview with Mike Breen, the team’s play-by-play man, on the MSG network in June 2020, Rose only spoke to reporters once, during the Zoom session of the team in July 2020 to officially announce the hiring of Thibodeau.
So the public sense of Rose’s vision for how to make a team, how he plans to bring the Knicks back to a sustained prominent place for the first time since the 1990s, therefore remains murky.
Our demand for Rose to break this policy for this article was predictably declined by a spokesperson for the team – even as the Rose regime, who chairs one of the surprise teams in the first half of the league. , has good things to say. Not many have predicted these Knicks will compete for a playoff spot, but the present is going well enough that Rose has faced limited pressure to explain the moves he’s made or his future plans.
“I see orange and blue skies again,” filmmaker Spike Lee, known as one of the Knicks’ biggest fans, said in a phone interview. “I am very, very encouraged.”
Maybe once it should be. On March 2, 2020, Rose attended her first game in her new role, but the Knicks’ victory over Houston – in their 61st of 66 games in a season interrupted by coronavirus – was overshadowed by a messy dispute between the owner of the team, James L. Dolan and Lee above the entrance he was using at Madison Square Garden. In March: Julius Randle’s breakout season earned him a spot in next Sunday’s All-Star Game; Thibodeau’s ploys and harsh exhortations led the Knicks to the league’s third defense; and tangible positivity is bubbling over the possibility of the team securing just fifth place in the playoffs in Dolan’s 20 seasons.
It also helps that after seven consecutive non-playoff seasons, Rose has presided over more hits than misses so far. It starts with hiring Thibodeau, whose demanding style clicked more easily than expected with an inexperienced roster. The Knicks entered Sunday’s game in Detroit at 17-17, which was good enough not only for a fourth-place share in the Eastern Conference, but also to distract from Dolan’s terrible season titles. latest on his clash with Lee and the over-gradual hiring of Steve Stoute as a branding consultant.
“Knick fans, we are optimistic,” Lee said. “We see hope. We haven’t seen this for a while.
In the NBA, most observers say it would be unfair to rate Rose over a year in the job even if the Knicks (with 13 of their 17 wins against teams under 0.500) did not capitalize on the deemed forgiving nature. from the east. Critics of Rose, or skeptics about his ability to successfully transition from player agent at Creative Artists Agency to Team Builder with no front office experience, surely see that he deserves more time to shape the list.
A urge to say the Knicks made a mistake in November by drafting Obi Toppin at No.8 overall rather than taking on electric guard Tyrese Haliburton, who made it to No.12 in Sacramento, is tempered by the possibility that Rose also unearthed a True Sleeper by acquiring the rights to pick No.25, Immanuel Quickley, who (sorry, doesn’t resist) quickly established himself as a fan favorite. The Knicks lobbied hard on free will to sign Gordon Hayward – at Thibodeau’s behest – but were applauded when they didn’t overreact after Hayward picked Charlotte. Rose maintained the financial flexibility to be a free agency player this summer instead.
While this free agent class isn’t as appealing as previously thought, after several stars signed contract extensions ahead of this season, vibes of hope are unexpectedly circulating ahead of schedule. Thibodeau’s New York squad is made up of established teams like Toronto, Miami and Boston, despite top-down play from RJ Barrett, the Knicks’ top pick of 2019, and a broken hand backed by Mitchell Sports Center. Robinson.
Derrick Rose’s trade initially sparked fears that Quickley’s development could suffer, in addition to Toppin’s slow start and apparent blunders from previous regimes, which burned the top 10 picks over Kevin Knox (two spots ahead of Shai Gilgeous -Alexander from Oklahoma City) and Frank Ntilikina (five places ahead of Donovan Mitchell of Utah and six ahead of Bam Adebayo of Miami). Still, Derrick Rose, on his second stint as a Knick, has settled in well to bolster a roster that lacks play and perimeter shooting. Some of the chuckles that would typically greet Thibodeau’s reunion with Rose, his former first Chicago option, has been drowned out by what Thibodeau is pulling out of a group that finished 23rd in defensive efficiency last season.
“Like all great Knick teams, they play defense,” said Lee.
Still, it’s suspected that the sunny outlook, even among longtime Knicks loyalists, is fleeting – especially with the Nets seemingly collecting superstars for the sport across New York’s East River.
Rose, whom the New York Times reported in November was making about $ 8 million a year, and her senior aide William Wesley, known as Worldwide Wes, will ultimately be judged on how quickly they can deliver at least one player in ZIP talent. code from Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving of the Nets. If the Nets play to their potential and emerge as true title contenders, sticking to Rose’s current methodical approach, as reasonable as it may sound, will require a discipline the Knicks aren’t exactly known for.
The media strategy, in the meantime, seems to let the flickers of progress on the pitch (and Thibodeau) speak. Rose and Wesley have a habit of operating this way after keeping very low profiles during their AAC days, but it brings the franchise back in some ways to the pre-Dolan era. Pat Riley and then Jeff Van Gundy were the leaders as coaches, in large part because of center star Patrick Ewing’s aversion to the spotlight.
When Toppin became the first draft pick in this new era, Rose limited sharing her thought process behind the selection to a written statement that said little more than “Obi was someone we really coveted.” When the Knicks were criticized for their apparent infatuation with players represented by CAA or Kentucky alumni who had played for John Calipari, close to Rose and Wesley, it was left to Thibodeau to insist that it is “more by chance” than the news media. suggests.
In a letter to season ticket holders a year ago, Rose wrote, “Nothing about this is easy or quick, so I ask you to keep patience. What I promise you in return is that I will be honest and direct. The reality, of course, is that the franchise has never been a feature of Dolan’s ownership, but who’s going to complain besides sports writers when the Knicks play like brave overkill?
If this is really the start of something – if Rose has the power to stay after all the false dawn that has brought down supposed saviors on the pitch (Amare Stoudemire, Carmelo Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis) and off (Donnie Walsh, Mike D’Antoni and Phil Jackson) – only scribes are required to remember Rose’s letter since arriving in Gotham.
Lee insisted, further, that fans understand why they are so rarely informed.
“You know where this came from,” Lee said. “It is a decree from above. I’m not happy with it, but there is someone else calling these shots. We’re used to it now. And he’s not selling the team, so what are we going to do? “
“Orange and blue skies,” Lee added, laughing.
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