Leon Rose opted for a slice of established order earlier this week when he determined to select up Scott Perry’s possibility and convey him again for an additional yr because the Knicks’ common supervisor. It's straightforward to shake your head and grumble at that, given what “established order” means across the Knicks proper now, and what it’s meant throughout Perry’s three-year run on the Backyard.
The numbers are ugly — 67-163 — and could be even uglier if the Knicks had been in a position to play the ultimate 16 video games of this yr’s schedule and maintain dropping 68 % of them, which was the clip they have been sustaining when NBA enterprise was stilled. However you can also make a case that Rose did the proper factor right here, for 2 very reasonable causes.
First, Perry has an extended sufficient monitor file within the NBA that he deserves to be judged independently and never in tandem with Steve Mills, with whom he shared decision-making duties. Additionally: Rose may have last say and thus may have oversight if oversight is critical. Mills’ personal file is sufficient of a practice wreck that it shouldn’t spill onto Perry.
The identical hold-the-line philosophy shouldn’t be prolonged to Mike Miller, who did a nice job below making an attempt circumstances in his 44-game tryout as interim coach. Miller can actually be within the combine to maintain the job completely, and will completely be given the chance to promote himself when Rose and Perry start to look in earnest to make that transfer.
However it will be silly to not acknowledge there are a minimum of three formidable candidates who would absolutely, at least, hear if approached.
I’ve already written that if I have been Rose, I might make a giant push to deliver Jeff Van Gundy again. He's nonetheless younger sufficient (58) to retain his outdated teaching vitality and has stored sharp teaching worldwide Staff USA golf equipment the previous few years. It isn’t an ideal rent: he hasn’t coached an NBA sport in 13 years, and he has a terrific TV job now.
Tom Thibodeau, Van Gundy’s outdated lieutenant throughout the newest Knicks glory run, does appear and this can be a mandatory path to pursue as properly, due to his personal file as a coach and the sort of credibility and gravitas he would deliver to the job. And if the Knicks might use further helpings of something proper now it's credibility and gravitas.
However the wisest selection of all could also be proper below their noses. Kenny Atkinson has labored for the Knicks as an assistant and he was doing excellent work throughout the East River with the Nets earlier than his shocking dismissal on March 7. There's nonetheless an air of uncertainty as to the small print about that transaction however none of that ought to fear the Knicks as a result of not one of the components of uneasiness in Brooklyn exist in Manhattan.
The Knicks want a employee, they usually want a grinder, and Atkinson is the house workplace for each. He was handed principally not possible rosters with the Nets and maximized each certainly one of them, coaxing and cajoling them to each an surprising playoff berth final yr and a feisty first-round playoff tangle with the higher, deeper, extra gifted 76ers.
The reward for that was speculated to be the expertise windfall that arrived final summer season: Kevin Durant on the layaway plan and Kyrie Irving instantly. From the beginning that appeared like a less-than-comfortable match and one thing cracked — both the gamers hinted (or extra) their reticence in regards to the coach or the coach expressed an unwillingness to bend to their will.
Doubtless, all of it falls someplace within the center.
And none of that is a matter with the Knicks. The Knicks have gifted items, and intriguing younger gamers, and on most nights this yr that wasn’t almost sufficient, and on some nights it was downright unsettling how noncompetitive they regarded. That may finish instantly on Atkinson’s watch. Anybody who noticed his work at Barclays Heart understands that.
“The key I discovered a very long time in the past is, you simply can’t be afraid of exhausting work,” Atkinson stated throughout an extended dialog simply earlier than the beginning of final season. “You'll be able to’t fear about lengthy hours. You'll be able to’t fear about how exhausting all of it may appear. Put within the time, put within the effort, put within the sweat fairness and there will probably be a payoff. There'll completely be a payoff.”
Knicks followers are craving for somebody to provide them a purpose, any purpose, to care once more, to take a position once more, to reside and die with the basketball staff once more. Sure, extra talent should arrive. But it surely begins with the person who will coach that expertise. Mike Miller is an efficient man. He’s completed a very good job. He could be a hell of a prime assistant. And never a horrible Robin to a Batman like Kenny Atkinson.
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