One statement that didn't get much attention: Mills said that the organization breaks down the season in 10-game increments. The first ended on Sunday with a humiliating 108-87 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers at MSG, after which Mills and Perry did something unusual, bordering on unthinkable in Knicks world: They met the media and said they weren't happy with the 2-8 start.
It quickly became clear that this is a crisis. The Athletic's Frank Isola reported that owner James Dolan made Mills and Perry talk to reporters and that he intends to try to poach Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri, whose contract expires in 2021. ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski and Malika Andrews reported that, while Mills said publicly that he still believes in the coaching staff, behind the scenes he is trying to get Fizdale fired.
The Knicks are 30th in offense and 21st in net rating, per Cleaning The Glass. Fizdale has talked about getting stops, running and sharing the ball since he was first introduced as coach, but they are 21st in defense, 23rd in transition frequency, 26th in pace and 27th in assist rate, with an offense that suffers from poor spacing and poor decision-making. It's difficult to argue that Fizdale has done an awesome job. It is ridiculous, however, to assign him more blame than the front office that constructed the roster.
Knicks media day
New York didn't have to add Randle, Portis and Gibson when it already had Robinson and Knox, who should probably play most of his minutes at power forward. It definitely didn't need to sign forward Marcus Morris a week and a half later. You might say that the Knicks had been selling a patient rebuild and then they sped up, blocking their young guys because they were so desperate to go from terrible to mediocre. Anyone around the league will tell you that it is exponentially easier to make that kind of leap than it is to go from decent to very good or from very good to great.
The real issue, though, is that they failed to get that right. It is understandable that the Knicks didn't want to have another 17-win season, that they wanted to add some structure, experience and grit. Brooklyn was forced to go that route because of its draft-pick debt, and it paid off when it established an identity, made the playoffs and completely changed the way the league saw the organization. Look at what the Suns are doing with Ricky Rubio, Aron Baynes and Dario Saric in the mix -- no one is talking about Robert Sarver in Phoenix, and Dolan would surely kill for similar silence in New York, but this collection of ill-fitting parts has brought all sorts of noise.
When the Knicks failed to sign top-end talent, their leadership said with straight faces that they were pleased with Plan B. "This group that we have assembled, we had them on the board as a roster and we like the way they fit with each other," Mills said at media day, as if this was a perfectly balanced team. Ideally, though, you'd want to put Barrett next to guards who can space the floor, and you'd want Randle to play with another big who can both shoot and protect the rim. Robinson would thrive next to a versatile, stretchy 4, and Payton would be best playing spread pick-and-roll. Fizdale's rotations probably aren't satisfying anybody, but all he can do is mix and match and make compromises.
Regardless of Fizdale's fate, the next notable date on the calendar is Dec. 15, when Randle, Portis, Morris, Payton, Gibson, Ellington and Reggie Bullock will be eligible to be traded. Teams with realistic playoff hopes could use those guys, and New York would be wise to lose some of them. It is almost certainly too late for the front office to create the kind of winning environment it crowed about, but it's not too late to create an environment less messy than this one, where the young core has a proper chance to grow.
it's like i said all along, their plan this summer was to go out get some free agents and be like last year's nets. they just don't know how to pick players or put together a roster. the idea was fine, the execution was terrible.
