Knicks president Leon Rose broke his silence and provided small hints of his vision for the franchise’s direction, the upcoming draft and coaching search.
On the coaching front:
What he said:
“We want to find the right leader that can develop our young players as well as hold everyone accountable and take us from development to becoming a perennial winner.”
“We also want someone we think will be collaborative with the front office. And someone that when you’re in that huddle and looking in that coaches eyes, everyone knows that’s the person that’s driving the ship.”
What I wish he had said instead:
“We feel very good about our current coach but we're doing our due diligence to ensure we have the very best leader out there that can develop our young players as well as hold everyone accountable. Becoming a perennial winner isn't something that is likely to happen in one or two seasons so it's most important that we develop our players and our culture to create an environment conducive to winning."
"We will work to get that coach the team he wants but he steers the ship and we won't have other voices in the locker room detracting from his vision."
On luring star free agents
What he said:
“What we have to create is an environment where players want to come here,” Rose said. “And the way we do that is on the day-to-day with the players we have, the organization we have and making sure every aspect of that is player-friendly and first class. We’re going to work as hard as we can that this is the place you want to be at. We have the greatest city in the world, we have an iconic arena and we just need to create culture that people are going to want to be part of.”
What I wish he had said instead:
"We've seen this franchise try to take shortcuts for the last 12 years. Fielding short-term rosters in the hopes of bottoming out and clearing salary quickly to chase free agents. Instead of trying to lure free agents to come here, we're going to build our organization into something first class. Players want to win and we're going to work hard to create a winning atmosphere. We have the greatest fans in the world and an iconic arena that has been home to a quick-fix culture. We're going to do the hard work and give our fans something they can be proud of, even if it means not making free agency a core strategy. When we build it, the players that want to win will naturally want to come here and play on our home floor wearing the Knick uniform.
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