Back in the New York Groove
The Knicks are in the playoffs. No, this not a dream, but excuse some Knickerbocker fans for feeling they might be in one. Will this team win it all? Probably not, but their rise from the depths has been nothing short of impressive and is still very surprising. Why? Let’s take a look.
Knicks fans don’t sugarcoat things. They’re well aware that this franchise has been bad and a laughingstock for most of the 21st century. The tailspin this team went down since the start of the new millennium deserves its own honorable mention, so that can be talked about another day. For now, we’ll just focus on the depths they rose from since the last time the Knicks were in the postseason, which was the 2012–13 season.
The Knicks had won 54 games and had gotten a great season from Carmelo Anthony as he was the league’s top scorer. New York ran into a younger, fresher team in Indiana that year, and they simply couldn’t beat their defensive strategy in the conference semifinals. While the ending was disappointing, the Knicks had won the most games since 2000 when they won 50, had the league’s top scorer, and was bringing most of the same team back. However, age, injuries and reality caught up with this team. A slow start and inconsistency plagued the Knicks all year and they missed the playoffs in disappointing fashion.
Owner James Dolan decided to shake things up and bring back the one and only Zen Master, Phil Jackson. Now Jackson wouldn’t be the coach, but he would be running the show in the front office as team president. It seemed like a match made in heaven, as Jackson was coming back to the team he had won 2 championships with as a player in the 1970s. Jackson was expected to hire someone who was familiar with his triangle offense and would run it, so after failing to lure Steve Kerr, he hired Derek Fisher. The next big move he made was signing Carmelo Anthony to a super max contract ensuring the Knicks still had their number one star. Anthony had clashed with coaches before, so it was interesting to see if he would be willing to work with the triangle offense.
The experiment was a flop as the team won 17 games in Fisher’s first year and he was fired before finishing his second season. Jackson did surprise many by drafting Kristaps Porzingis in 2015, as he was relatively unknown. Porzingis’s good play quieted the critics, but he wouldn’t be in New York for long. Star players having issues with coaches or the front office is nothing new, but the fact Jackson ended up having problems with both Anthony and Porzingis showed the environment was toxic all around and that would have some lingering effects shortly.
Jackson was fired in June 2017. Anthony ended up demanding a trade and was shipped to Oklahoma City in September 2017. It was clear this was now Porzingis’s team, but his next two seasons were cut short due to tearing his ACL in early 2018. A year later, Porzingis’s concerns with the direction the team was heading in caused him to ask for a trade. It had been well established that the Knicks were tanking with the hopes of getting a high draft pick and clearing cap space to sign big name free agents like Kyrie Irving, Kawhi Leonard and Kevin Durant. To aid with attracting these big names, the Knicks had hired popular assistant coach David Fizdale. Sure enough, the plan worked. The Knicks won 17 games to have a good shot at the number one pick in the lottery and had plenty of cap space to sign a big name.
Of course, everything backfired for the Knicks. The first pick went to New Orleans, meaning the Knicks missed out on Zion Williamson. While getting the third pick and selecting RJ Barrett isn’t bad, the Knicks really wanted Williamson. On top of that, Kyrie Irving decided to sign with the rival Brooklyn Nets and he got Kevin Durant to come with him. The belief was that the issues both Anthony and Porzingis faced with the front office caused Irving, Durant and other big name free agents to avoid signing with New York. The Knicks had failed on all ends, and their biggest rival had gotten a lot better. Now, the team could’ve responded by using the cap space to hand out big contracts to some players who didn’t deserve it like they had done in the past two, but they wisely chose not to. They did bring in Julius Randle, but didn’t sign him to a contract that restricted the team salary wise. General manager Scott Perry shrewdly signed role players to 1- or 2-year contracts that didn’t tie the team to anyone, and this would allow them to trade these players to contenders should the team underperform.
While the team wasn’t expected to be very good, the 4–18 start in coach Fizdale’s second season was disappointing because the team wasn’t competitive and was getting blown out by bad teams. Unfairly, Fizdale became the scapegoat and was fired. Critics noted that while Fizdale didn’t get the most out of this squad, he didn’t have much to work with. What worried many was that RJ Barrett wasn’t developing and the fact Julius Randle struggled in his role as this primary scorer as he had never been in that position. Before the pandemic cut the season short, the Knicks did play better and were competitive under interim coach Mike Miller, but it was clear changes had to be made.
The Knicks got to work before the season began as they hired former player agent Leon Rose as team president, which was seen as following the model set by the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers who had hired player agents as front office executives. Rose’s experience as an agent with big names in the league could work to attract starts to a team that many in the NBA avoided due to a toxic work environment and the fact the franchise wasn’t in a position to win. Rose and Perry made a big splash by hiring Tom Thibodeau. Thibodeau had been an assistant in New York some time ago, and was rumored to have wanted to be the head coach for some time already. With Thibodeau, you knew the team would be competitive and play good, intense defense. However, even the most optimistic fan couldn’t have imagined the team having this much success.
Early on, the Knicks were led primarily by Austin Rivers and the team was hanging around the .500 mark. Normally, this is nothing to get excited about, but considering the putrid status of the Knicks in recent years, this was enough to make games something you looked forward to seeing. The Knicks started out as a tough, defensive team and have continued to be as they are ranked first in the league in defense. While that will keep the teams in games, you need some scoring. The team addressed this need as they traded for Derrick Rose in February and the Knicks have taken off since due to his efficient play at point guard. Thibodeau’s effect on this team is visible with the good defense, the development of RJ Barrett, especially as a jump shooter, and the blossoming of Julius Randle.
Randle has heard the MVP chants at home and even on the road when Knicks fans showed up at opponents’ games. He’s now comfortable with being the main guy, and doesn’t shy away from taking the big shots. The contributions of Nerlens Noel and Taj Gibson on defense and 3-point shooting of Immanuel Quickley, Reggie Bullock, and Alec Burks also deserve shoutouts as they have been key contributors. Gibson has surprised me in particular because I saw his signing as allowing him to retire with his hometown team, but his play has been better than what I expected and I can’t help but think his veteran leadership has been a plus. Mitchell Robinson was playing well before his injury, so the hope is he can come back and contribute next season.
The Knicks started out as a team that wasn’t seen as a playoff squad, to one that was competitive, and has now become a solid core that will finish with a good enough record to avoid the play-in tournament. Now what does this mean? Do I think they’ll win it all? No, this team doesn’t have much playoff experience and needs more scoring to be able to be considered a title contender. They have given the top teams in the league a good fight this year, but they fall short as the other teams’ experience leads to them being able to close out games, which is something the Knicks have improved on, but still need to work on. I think this team is good enough to win one series especially if they match up against the Atlanta Hawks or Miami Heat. However, things change when it comes to the Milwaukee Bucks, Philadelphia 76ers and the Brooklyn Nets.
A matchup with the Nets would be great for both the league and city of New York as you have a great matchup with all the scoring of the Nets and the tough defense of the Knicks. In New York, just making the playoffs and having a feel-good story is something that is seen as ridiculous. But for this year at least, the Knicks fit the mold of a feel-gold story by making the playoffs and finally putting together a good environment in both the front office and the team itself.
