New York Knicks Fail to Steal NBA's Offseason, and That's OK
When the New York Knicks look back on the NBA's 2015 offseason, they will not be treated to a nostalgic reel commemorating a summer's worth of unparalleled success.
Indeed, at first mention, their body of offseason work will be associated with an alarming number of did-nots.
They did not win the draft lottery.
They did not end up with one of Jahlil Okafor, D'Angelo Russell and Karl-Anthony Towns, the top three prospects from this year's rookie class.
They did not use the fourth overall pick on a player guaranteed to come in and make an immediate impact.
They did not poach any marquee free agents, from DeAndre Jordan and Marc Gasol, who officially re-signed with Memphis, per Grizzlies.com, to LaMarcus Aldridge and Goran Dragic.
They did not even land a meeting with Aldridge, according to NBA.com's David Aldridge.
They did not make up for whiffing on the biggest names by landing one of the premier consolation prizes—not Greg Monroe, not Tobias Harris, not DeMarre Carroll.
They did not unmistakably reinsert themselves into the Eastern Conference playoff picture.
They did not parlay their cap space and draft position into the offseason to marginalize all other offseasons.
And you know what?
That's OK.
Only those still clinging to the outdated notion that team president Phil Jackson needed to rebuild through free agency and needed to do so right now think the Knicks' offseason has been a failure. And to be absolutely fair, that lingering misconception is a manifestation of New York's own precept.
As recently as late April, Jackson was trumpeting the importance of free agency above all else, per the Wall Street Journal's Chris Herring:
Comments such as those, coupled with $25 million-plus in cap space, naturally gave way to inflexible beliefs—far-flung and rigid stances held, at one point, by yours truly.
Anything less than landing another superstar to play alongside the 31-year-old Carmelo Anthony would be unacceptable. That was in part because the Knicks had long advertised as much but mostly because the idea of New York playing the long game and rebuilding conventionally through the draft and a series of positive yet low-key additions remained altogether unfathomable.
Those same stringent constructs still, to some degree, followed the Knicks into free agency. But Jackson's draft-day hint at a complete about-face softened them, if only slightly.
Rather than select the more NBA-ready Justise Winslow or Willie Cauley-Stein or flip the pick for an established talent, the Knicks rolled with the high-risk, high-reward Kristaps Porzingis.
Tall and gangly, Porzingis is a project. Standing taller than 7'1" without shoes, per ESPN's Chad Ford (via ESPN's Ian Begley), the 19-year-old has Dirk Nowitzki's offensive range with the explosion and shot-blocking potential of a spindly DeAndre Jordan. He is the sexy pick for a team tethering its fate to traditional rebuilding methods, not one trying to turn things around posthaste.
Porzingis alone proved the Knicks were no longer prepping themselves for an offseason marked by instant gratification. As Basketball Insiders' Tommy Beer put it at the time:
Just like that, Jackson wasn't parroting lines on the need for a momentous free-agency coup anymore. He was instead fielding questions on prospect development and the dismissal of a timeline he laid down through his calculated pressers and actions (re-signing Anthony).
"We'll balance the team off with veterans, so the load doesn't fall on Kris right away," Jackson said of Porzingis and of putting the big picture ahead of present-day win totals, per Howard Megdal for USA Today. "This is a young man who will have to adjust to the game. So we want him to be able to do that."
Prioritizing process and patience over stars and expedited glory was still a difficult concept to grasp for many, even then. Never mind that the Knicks ended up here, working off a 17-win season, largely because they spent themselves into oblivion on both the free-agent (Amar'e Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler) and trade (Andrea Bargnani, Anthony) markets. Waiting around and basking in the small victories wasn't part of the plan.
Then, quite suddenly, it became the entire plan.
In lieu of resting all their hopes on superstar free agents both leaving incumbent teams and doing so to join a transitioning New York franchise, the Knicks invested in smaller splashes.
Arron Afflalo, Robin Lopez and Kyle O'Quinn headline their list of offseason free-agent accomplishments, and not one of them, on paper, spells a return to prominence. Still, while they diverge from New York's initial desires, they're not without intrigue.
Afflalo is coming off a down season, but he's not yet 30 years old and can function as a quintessential three-and-D, non-ball-dominant contributor in the Knicks' triangle offense. He drilled a respectable 36.6 percent of his spot-up treys last season, and opponents shot only 32.2 percent when firing away against him from beyond the arc.
Lopez is a scrappy rebounder and has enough offensive range to function outside the paint when others, namely Anthony, are working with their back to the basket. Nearly 17 percent of his shot attempts came outside 10 feet last season.
The 6'10" O'Quinn can play power forward and center, has flashed three-point range (12-of-43 from deep in 2014-15) and is averaging a show-me-more 18.5 points, 15.0 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 3.0 blocks per 100 possessions through his first three seasons in the league.
The only other player to match those per-100-possession benchmarks while also logging at least 2,500 minutes since 2012-13: Tim Duncan.
Both Lopez and O'Quinn move the needle on defense. O'Quinn has shown he can defend attacking wings, and he, along with Lopez, ranks as an immediate rim-protecting upgrade over anyone New York has employed in each of the last two seasons.
And, statistically speaking, they're at least as competent as any other tower the Knicks might have landed:
| Robin Lopez | 8.8 | 48.0% |
| DeAndre Jordan | 8.7 | 48.5% |
| Kyle O'Quinn | 4.2 | 48.6% |
| Marc Gasol | 7.5 | 49.4% |
| Greg Monroe | 7.3 | 55.1% |
Jackson signed players who, in conjunction with Porzingis, a healthy Anthony and rookie guard Jerian Grant, can help the Knicks improve measurably next season. They aren't playoff-locks, nor are they even guaranteed to be in the conversation. But Jackson is assembling an actual team—one that has a chance of thriving defensively and eventually attracting free agents the Knicks do not appeal to now.
As Beer wrote:
"In this new, flattened world we live in, players know they don’t need to live in a major metropolitan hub in order to become internationally famous and land incredibly lucrative endorsement deals. Kevin Durant plays for a team in Oklahoma. LeBron James is based out of Ohio. Desirable free agents in today’s NBA (Love, David West, Greg Monroe and Aldridge being the latest examples) often end up choosing their new team in large part based on which team gave them the greatest chance to win big.
"
If this offseason is evidence of anything, it's that to get talent, you need talent. The Knicks, quite simply, will be more attractive next summer with a productive Anthony surrounded by a core of complementary cast members as opposed to Anthony and one other high-level impact player.
What they've done this summer makes it more likely they'll get in a room with Kevin Durant, Mike Conley, Al Horford et al. as more than just a formal afterthought.
Sure, the circumstances under which they're rebuilding continue to be far from perfect. The triangle offense is untested in today's pace-and-space NBA, Anthony could decide to waive his no-trade clause amid intense restructuring, and the Knicks don't own the rights to their own first-rounder next year.
But Jackson has, if nothing else, created an environment in which the macro view transcends short-term thinking, all while knowing the foundation he's fashioning may not pay its intended dividends until after he, a 69-going-on-70-year-old executive, walks away.
After all the Knicks have been through over the last 15 years—the bungled trades, failed free-agency bids, missed playoff campaigns—there's no overvaluing the significance of reinventing the way this team conducts itself.
Maybe it won't be apparent next season, or the season after or even the season after that, but the Knicks are gradually leaving an impression that will outlast any one free-agency victory, big or monstrous, they could have hoped for this summer.
So yes, when they look back on their offseason, the Knicks will have an overabundance of did-nots upon which to reflect.
Yet, at the same time, and more importantly, they won't have a single shouldn't-have-done to apologize for.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited. Draft-pick commitments from RealGM.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @danfavale.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
