The new draft night normal for the Knicks front office: Damn, it feels good to have a rudder

The Knicks were once deemed by a prominent NBA reporter to be “rudderless.” In 2021, the team seems to finally have found its rudder, with Leon Rose’s front office braintrust.

Well then, two drafts into the Don Leon era, how best to describe the draft night vibe of this latest iteration of the New York Knicks braintrust? 

Imagine if front offices played pickup hoops. Imagine the Knicks’ front office five — Leon Rose in shin-length shorts, Walt Perrin securing his goggles, Brock Aller in an ill-fitting Sloan ’06 polo, William Wesley bare-chested and finding things to bump into, and Scott Perry in an Elfrid Payton high school jersey — preparing to play a random five-man-lineup of hardened NYC capital-H-Hoopers. Imagine the swelling bravado of the latter five at the objectively sorry sight of our far from fearsome front office crew.

Leon’s Looney Tune David’s are in one concrete corner. The scary Big Apple-bred Monstar-Goliath’s are in the other.

Now, imagine the symbolic shock of a first possession of that game of pickup, where, in chronological order, the following strategical gambit unfolds: 1) Scott Perry wins the tip, after distracting his opponent with small talk, irresistible smiles, and general niceties before sprinting to the corner to ironically space the floor. 2) World Wide Wes unleashes a seismic screen on the biggest enemy Goliath he can find, howling what sounds like “DEUUUUUCE!” as a puddle of former human pools at his feet. 3) Brock Aller cruises into the unlikeliest hesi pull-up jimbo in the history of HPUJ’s, one for the playground ages, positively 2017-Fultzian, only to abort at the apex of his shot in favor of diming up a goggled and rim-bound teammate. 4) Walt Perrin, The Big Front Office Fundamental, in oceans of space, catches and finishes with the swagger of a man confident he has seen more than the other guy’s seen, knows more than the other guy knows. 5) Leon Rose, unmoved from the top of the key the whole play, makes eye contact with each of his front office family, one by one, nodding approval with his eyes at the textbook execution of the first of many premeditated maneuvers.

The exhausted point of this absurd analogy being: this front office, two summers in a row, has come to play; has given approximately zero strategical deuces about outside optics or half-baked pick grades; and has gone about as quietly into consecutive NBA Draft nights as a coked-up elephant in a room full of cymbals.

In both 2020 and 2021, the Knicks made three trades on draft night. 

Last summer, Rose and Co. turned the 27th and 38th picks into the 23rd pick in a trade with the Utah Jazz, before trading that 23rd pick to the Minnesota Timberwolves for the 25th and 33rd pick: a ridiculous-in-the-moment Houdini-maneuver that jumped them up seven total spots, at no cost. They took some guy named Immanuel Quickley at 25, and traded the 33rd pick — controversially, in the moment — for the Detroit Pistons’ 2023 second rounder, a juicy asset in the year of the rumored “double draft,” set to be loaded with potential as the first year of draft eligibility for high school prospects.

This year, it was more of the same, as the Knicks traded out of three of the four draft picks they went into the night with: turning the 19th pick into a future first from the Charlotte Hornets, with steadily decreasing protections for the next four drafts (while quietly creating some extra cap space, potentially putting a noose on the Hornets’ draft flexibility for the next few years, as well as potentially getting another first round bite in that talent-bloated 2023 mega draft). They then — again, controversially, in the moment — traded the 21st pick to the Los Angeles Clippers for the 25th pick and another Pistons second rounder in 2024. After taking Quentin Grimes — not a first tier choice, but a guy they liked all along — at 25, they traded the 32nd pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder for the 34th and 36th picks, taking promising Lithuanian draft-and-stash point guard Rokas Jokubaitis and Miles McBride — another player they liked all along — respectively, in an audacious two-for-one deal.

If those two paragraphs were difficult to follow, it’s because the Knicks’ draft night machinations have been difficult to follow. Like keeping track of a ping pong ball under one of a trio of cups and a pair of deceptive hands. Except there are thirty sets of cups. And thirty sets of hands. As if this labyrinthine trail of transactions wasn’t enough, there are also the deals that weren’t made to consider, the ones that were discussed and discarded, of which there were reportedly many, with the Knicks very active in talks to move up at various spots in both drafts.

Of course, as the famous old John Wooden saying goes, “don’t mistake activity with achievement.” Very wise advice. A cautionary truth. After all, who could forget the fart in a hurricane insignificance of Brandon Jennings picking up opposing point guards full court, for example. For this Knick front office, though, their draft night activity — the transactional gymnastics, the methodical squeezing of picks for more picks, the general frenzy to mine for and find any and all available value — has undeniably led to assets: and assets are everything to front offices. They are oxygen and currency and fuel for five-pointed possibilities. Assets weaponize ambition, and this front office — you may have heard — is as ambitious as they come.

The strategical draft night vibe now becoming a norm for the Knicks is one of absolute reform: a rudderless to fully-ruddered fairytale. From accidental Ron Baker no trade clauses, to consecutive draft night asset heists. From the team with a Charlie Ward-shaped curse, to the team with — *checks notes* — seven possible rookie scale contracts on the roster heading into next season. From the team haunted by past failures, to the team luxuriating in the flexibility of future picks.

(The third-most picks in the league, by the way, behind only ground zero rebuilding franchises in the Houston Rockets and OKC Thunder, fresh off of trading James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul and Paul George: super and so-so star assets the Knicks didn’t have, unless you’re counting the Latvian breadstick, which I am not.)

On the evidence of the last two draft nights, if front offices played pickup hoops, 29 other teams should be very careful about squaring off against Leon Rose and Co.’s New York Knicks: a braintrust that comes to play, that has a deep bag of plans and counter-plans, and is seemingly never satisfied. 

Which, funnily enough, is a draft night vibe not unlike the on court ethos of one Tom Thibodeau’s blue and orange upstart squad. I think they call that organizational synergy? Or direction? Or whatever the technical term is for that fluffy-tummy feeling that comes with having an emphatically functional rudder? 

Well, five rudders, really. There are probably more rudders on the way, too. Brock Aller — unleashing more of his beautifully psychotic strategic underbelly with every passing offseason second — likely has a handful of rudder based acquisitions in the works as we speak. I’m sure there are a few unprotected rudders in Sacramento or Washington or Minnesota just begging to be poached and put to work for a franchise with an embarrassment of rudders. Watch this space. And keep your eyes peeled for rudders. It’s a great word, isn’t it: rudder. Fun to say. I never used to be a fan. But it’s growing on me. Even if I’m not exactly certain on what a real-life rudder looks like.

What I’m damn certain of though, two drafts into the Leon Rose era, is this: the New York Knicks — finally — have plenty of the bloody things.