The New York Knicks fired team president Steve Mills on Tuesday, just two days out from the NBA trade deadline, the team announced. Mills had served as the president of basketball operations since 2017, with his tenure as executive vice president and general manager dating back to 2013. During that time, the Knicks have gone a combined 117-365 without a single playoff appearance.
Mills’ run as basketball czar coincides directly with their spiral from a 54-win playoff team into an NBA punchline. It wasn’t all his fault. From 2013-2017, Mills served under Phil Jackson, whose head-scratching decision making over that four-year span put Mills behind the eight ball from the start of his president tenure.
Things only got worse from there under Mills — not just from a basketball standpoint, but public relations, too. Ten games into this season, Mills called an impromptu press conference in which he addressed the team’s unacceptable overall shortcomings while singling out the lack of consistent effort and execution. It was a blatant shot at then-coach David Fizdale, who was clearly being set up as a proper scapegoat. Less than month later, Fizdale was fired.
What was Fizdale supposed to do with the roster Mills and then-general manager Scott Perry — who the team said will serve as Mill’s replacement for the time being — had constructed? Mills was adamant that the Knicks had the necessary components to be a playoff team this season, which was preposterous all along. How anyone, let alone someone who should have a keener basketball eye than 99 percent of the world, could think this a playoff-caliber roster is frankly baffling.
But Mills was committed to the PR cause, see-through as it was, from the start. After the Knicks struck out on signing prized free agents Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving this past summer, only to land on the likes of Julius Randle, Elfrid Payton and Marcus Morris, Mills sent a press release to fans addressing their frustration before subsequently deeming the offseason a success. Just say you struck out and move on. Trying to explain it always makes it worse.
Indeed, this approach was par for the course under Mills: Make a mistake, then make it even worse in your reaction to the mistake. Mills was formally announced as the Knicks president one week after the team signed Tim Hardaway Jr. to a four-year, $71 million contract in July of 2017. It was seen as a significant overpay at the time, particularly for a player the Knicks had drafted and had on their roster two years earlier, only to trade him to Atlanta. They could’ve just kept Hardaway in the first place and signed him for less when he hit restricted free agency.
instead, they overpaid to get a player they already had, only to then again look for ways to get rid of Hardaway and his contract shortly thereafter. They eventually did trade Hardaway to Dallas in the deal also shipped out Kristaps Porzingis. It was sold, again, as Porzingis’ fault. Reports were leaked that Porzingis demanded a trade and even threatened to go back to Europe.
The Knicks got back Dennis Smith Jr. in the trade. Yes, the same Dennis Smith Jr. they could have just drafted two years earlier when they instead took Frank Ntilikina. Now the Knicks are reportedly in talks with the Hornets to try to trade Smith, as well as Randle, who was of course the “marquee” free agent signing of their supposedly successful summer.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Of course, the real benefit of that Porzingis trade was that it cleared a bunch of cap space for the Knicks, who were pushing to land Durant and one other max free agent. Not so much. The Knicks didn’t even get a meeting with Durant, only to try to convince people they were actually the ones who chose to pull out of the Durant sweepstakes.
There are only two ways to look at this: Either Mills was telling the truth that he and the Knicks didn’t want to be in the business of Kevin Durant, which would make him, shall we say, less than smart. Or the Knicks were lying, again, to try to save face. Either way, it was a face plant.
Mills went on to spearhead a campaign around the Knicks’ supposedly patient plans. They weren’t going to reach for second-tier free agents as a reaction to missing on the top-tier guys. Earlier this season, I wrote this:
It’s not to suggest the Knicks absolutely should’ve ponied up for some second-tier stars this summer. That’s not necessarily true. I’ve had conversations with two GMs in the past few weeks, and both of them said one of the biggest mistakes teams make is overpaying good-but-not-great free agents just because you have cap space. You can use that space to take on other teams’ bad contracts, for instance, and get some quality draft picks out of the deal.
The Knicks choosing not to sign a good, long-term crop of second-tier free agents this past summer wasn’t crazy. What is crazy is not signing good players and then expecting to be good. Last I checked, the Knicks had more than enough money, even if they had to overpay, to sign BOTH Bojan Bogdanovic and Malcolm Brogdon, just as an example. Both those guys are killing it with their new teams and together, with R.J. Barrett and Mitchell Robinson, would’ve made the Knicks an almost surefire playoff team.
On a smaller level they could’ve inked a second go-round with Derrick Rose. They could’ve signed JJ Redick and/or Ricky Rubio. They had a lot of options to turn themselves into a good team, but they wanted to be great or nothing. And now they’re surprised –after forgoing opportunities to go after one, or two, or even three of the aforementioned players to instead bring in Julius Randle, Taj Gibson and Elfrid Payton — that they’re not a good team?
Come on, man. The root of frustration lies in outsized expectations. If you’re an ugly dude thinking you’re going to get a date with a supermodel, you’re setting yourself up to be frustrated. The Knicks are an ugly dude. Have been for a long time. They had a chance to get a decent makeover and make themselves presentable, but they didn’t want to do that. That’s on them. Ultimately, that’s on Mills and Perry, and of course the perpetually culpable Dolan. They’re the ones who have to look in the mirror.
As of Tuesday, this still applies. The Knicks have to look themselves in the mirror. Firing Mills was the first step in that, even if the real problem continues to be Dolan’s ownership. If somehow Dolan can lure his known target to run basketball operations, Toronto’s Masai Ujiri, this can be fixed. Perhaps not in a New York minute, but the potential is there.
The potential is always there in New York. You’re a mess right up until the day you aren’t anymore. Just ask the Lakers. You have big-market leeway to make error after error and still come up smelling like roses with a few smart, or lucky, rolls of the dice. The Knicks still have a lot of cap space. They have R.J. Barrett. They can still dream. But Tuesday was about dealing in reality, which has been slapping Knicks fans in the face for way too long.
