Ask, and you shall receive. The Knicks Kids are growing up in real-time under new head coach Mike Brown.
It’s one of the mandates Knicks owner James Dolan said he set forth in a rare media appearance, this time with WFAN’s Craig Carton and Chris McGonigle on Jan. 5.
Dolan explained why the development of young players was such a critical, make-or-break responsibility for a professional sports franchise.
“Because of the way the sport’s evolving and how much more complicated it is, we’re very big on development because it’s not like the old days, the old Yankees, where you get Reggie Jackson and this guy, and this guy and put together a team. It’s almost impossible to do that in the NBA,” he said. “You have to home-grow some of your talent, and that also builds up trade currency, but that’s a development thing. There’s literally 20 people who are specifically dedicated to helping the players get their skills up.
“And that’s important for the development of a franchise. And Tom liked development, but he didn’t really [push it].”
If Thibodeau didn’t push development, Brown has taken the mantle full steam ahead.
Second-year guard Tyler Kolek has become a steady, reliable playmaker in extended, high-leverage minutes. Second-year forward Kevin McCullar Jr., now healthy, is showing his wide-ranging skill set, as is rookie forward Mohamed Diawara, a versatile 6-foot-9 wing with strong defensive instincts and a three-point shot currently under construction. And then there’s Ariel Hukporti, the bruising Year 2 big man who posted a career-best stat line of eight points, 16 rebounds, four assists and four blocks in Friday’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
All four were selected in the second round–with second-round picks the most prevalent of the Knicks’ draft asset stockpile after sending five out in the Mikal Bridges trade.
“One of the issues that Mike has to deal with is that he’s still bringing up guys,” Dolan said on WFAN. “So we’ve got some young guys he’s gotta find minutes for. And we need them to get minutes so that when we get to the playoffs–when we played Indiana, we were bereft, because they didn’t have all that experience, but they still did very well.
“But now I expect we’re gonna see a lot more of the bench. That’s Mike’s style anyway.”
Dolan and Knicks president Leon Rose helped matters by improving the bench, signing Jordan Clarkson and Guerschon Yabusele as their lone free-agency acquisitions of the offseason. Injuries, however, sidelined Miles McBride, Josh Hart and Landry Shamet each to varying degrees, with Hart (ankle) and Shamet (shoulder) still on the shelf. Plus Yabusele has fallen out of the rotation and has become a trade candidate given his mid-level salary with his spot in the lineup.
That’s exactly why development of young players is so important. You never know who you need to step up in a pinch, be it in the playoffs under pressure, mid-season due to injury, or after the trade deadline should a heightened role suddenly become available.
“We did come to a conclusion that we had an idea of how we wanted to organize the team, and that meant we needed to evolve actually beyond the old traditional formulas. And we tried to work that with Tom. It really wasn’t his thing,” said Dolan. Carton insinuated the evolution was rooted in the team’s isolation-heavy style of offense on the floor, but the Knicks’ owner pushed back: “No, that’s some of it. It’s really about style of leadership, right? Collaboration versus sort of [Carton interjects: ‘A lone wolf?’]. Yeah. Thank you for giving me a word, that’s better than the one I was thinking.
“I won’t say you can’t win a title with Tom Thibodeau. I don’t necessarily know that’s true. But if you want to build a long-term, competitive, compete for the [championship], you need someone who’s much more of a collaborator than Tom was.
“But Tom is still a great coach. He should coach again in the NBA. If I had a franchise that I was just starting, he would be a gold mine to get. And he was like that for us. When we first started and he first came in, he brought discipline, he brought strategies. He brought us all that way. But we really felt we needed to make that change to go the rest of the way.”
Dolan made the change. On a four-game losing streak entering Wednesday’s matchup against the Los Angeles Clippers, only time will tell if winning an NBA Cup will be the closest this Knicks team comes to hanging a championship banner since Thibodeau brought them to the Eastern Conference Finals last season.
