There is no organization in the NBA that operates with less transparency from the top than the New York Knicks. Team president Leon Rose doesn’t speak at press conferences or answer questions from the external media, and owner James Dolan hadn’t done an interview in three years.
But all that changed on Monday when Dolan joined his friend Craig Carton on New York’s WFAN radio for the launch of “The Carton Show,” offering a rare chance to hear about the Knicks from their owner.
There were a handful of topics discussed, including whether Rose has a long-term contract with the team — “As far as I know, Leon’s with us for the long-term” — and why Dolan refused to hang a banner for the Knicks winning the NBA Cup — “We want an NBA championship. We don’t want the consolation prize.”
However there were two topics that came up that were the most interesting to get Dolan’s thoughts on: the firing Tom Thibodeau, the first coach to get the Knicks back to the Eastern Conference finals in 25 years, and subsequent hiring of Mike Brown and the rumors of trade talks to bring in Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Dolan on firing Tom Thibodeau
“The team is really built on the shoulders of Tom Thibodeau. He built that core, we went as far as we did last year, so you really gotta take your hat off to Tom and the job that he did. But we did come to the conclusion that we had an idea of how we wanted to organize the team, and actually it goes for both teams, and that meant we needed to evolve beyond the old traditional coaching formulas, etc. And we tried to work that with Tom and it really wasn’t his thing …
“That’s some of it [not using the bench, style of play], but it was much more about style of leadership. Collaboration versus sort of [lone wolf] — yeah. Because of the way, particularly basketball, is evolving, how much more complicated it is, they’re very big on development on both clubs, because you can’t — it’s not like the old days, the old Yankees where you get Reggie Jackson and this guy and you put together a team. It’s almost impossible to do that in the NBA. You have to home grow some of your talent and that also builds up trade currency, etc. But it’s a development thing, and that’s a team. It’s literally 20 people who are specifically dedicated to developing the players, to getting their skill levels up to getting the strategy on the court in. And that’s important for the development of the franchise. But Tom, he liked development, but he didn’t really … [interrupted by Carton] …
“I won’t say you can’t win a title with Tom Thibodeau, I don’t think that’s true, but if you want to build a long-term, competitive, compete for the … you need somebody who’s more of a collaborator than Tom was. But still, you really, Tom is still a great coach. He should coach again in the NBA. If I had a franchise I was just starting with, he would be a gold mine to get. He was like that for us when we first started and he first came in, he brought discipline. He brought strategy. He brought us all that way but we really felt we needed to make a change to go the rest of the way …
“We talked to Tom all the time, and, look, I don’t wanna get too deep into the interaction, but I would say that whole last year we were talking with Tom about where we wanted to go, etc. He would probably tell you that he’s stubborn, but he’d also tell you that he’s right.”
Dolan on whether Knicks came close to trading for Giannis Antetokounmpo
“Not that I’m aware of. And I think — look, we love our team right now. They have chemistry, they all like each other. I’ve never seen a locker room more copacetic. There’s a lot of energy in there. Leon can always overrule me, but I don’t see us making a big change. We gotta keep building up this group. This group can win a championship. I believe that.
“Look how far we got with our group last year. And then take a look at who was playing and who wasn’t playing, and we had injuries. We’re going into this season, the second half of the season — Josh is still out and Landry is coming back soon — we got depth. And if we stay healthy, we’ll go into the playoffs in much better condition than we went into the playoffs last year.”
Main takeaways
Dolan might not always like league rules, but even he knows better than to risk a tampering violation regarding Antetokounmpo, so it’s not a surprise that he’d sidestep that topic. That said, he genuinely seems excited about this group and I’m inclined to believe him when he says there aren’t plans for any major moves midseason and that they’ll see what this group can do as constructed. That won’t stop Antetokounmpo trade rumors, but should put them on the back burner for six months.
The Thibodeau portion was the most forthcoming part of Dolan’s interview and he came across as someone a bit torn by parting ways with the coach that laid the foundation for this team’s success. The word he kept coming back to was “collaborator,” and while he tried to be careful with his words, it was clear that at some point there was a split internally on how the team should operate to create sustained success and Thibodeau wasn’t interested in making the changes the front office wanted.
Dolan highlighted the importance of developing talent internally for both on-court reasons and creating more desirable trade assets, and it seems some of the frustration Knicks fans had with Thibodeau’s tight rotations not offering time for younger players was shared by those in charge. Dolan pointed to the depth of the Knicks this year and hoped they would enter the playoffs with better health by being able to lean more on that.
There wasn’t much ground-breaking in the interview, as one would expect, but the Thibodeau portion was interesting and he at least briefly calmed the Antetokounmpo rumblings. His stance on an NBA Cup banner was perhaps the most controversial for Knicks fans, but also not at all surprising.
