The Knicks Rewarded Mediocrity.
Now They Are Stuck In It.

In the wake of New York’s early playoff exit, several members of the Knicks organization were waiting to receive their bouquets of roses. Perry, who had signed or drafted every player in the Knicks’ starting line-up, was credited for building the foundation of the team. Randle was praised for leading the starting unit and for carrying the team to the playoffs. From the front office to the hardwood floor of Madison Square Garden, they had orchestrated the franchise’s turnaround.

Drowned out by the ambient noise of this frivolous ceremony, the statistics however screamed that the Knicks’ success had been driven by their bench, a trend that has carried over into this season. Randle and the Knicks’ starters may have admirably kept the team afloat against opposing starting units last year, but they didn’t make much of a difference - the bench did, spearheaded by the team’s silent MVP Derrick Rose.

Randle and RJ Barrett – Perry’s signature additions from the 2019 offseason and the faces of the franchise – both ended the 2020-21 season below league average in true shooting percentage. Through the first fifteen games of this new (yet somehow already feeling old) season, both players are still stuck in this Altschmerz of inefficiency, with true shooting percentages of 51.8 and 49.9 respectively.

The juxtaposition of high usage and low scoring efficiency inevitably puts a ceiling on a basketball team. By committing to this pairing, and by merely tweaking the roster around it instead of kickstarting a more audacious rebuild, the Knicks invested in a starting line-up that is fundamentally flawed. It is slow. It is inefficient. It is quintessentially Scott Perry.

Both the Detroit Pistons and the Orlando Magic had to blow up their teams after wasting years on the trajectory to mediocrity that Perry put them on. Perhaps a decade plus of swimming in lottery balls should have served as a warning that he neither has the eye for talent nor the understanding of analytics required to competently build a franchise. However, it only took one rebound sex session with the playoffs for Leon Rose to feel that Perry’s input within the front office was valuable, judging by his contract extension. Beyond a reasonable doubt, Perry’s voice had been heard when the Knicks signed former Magic player Evan Fournier to a $73 million contract. A few months later, Fournier can’t stay on the court in the fourth quarter because of his general mediocrity as an NBA player, the surprising sum of his offensive versatility and his defensive ineptitude.

By signing two average starters in Fournier and Walker, the Knicks only added more noise and complexity to their starting line-up problems. Should Tom Thibodeau bench Walker for his lack of defense? Should Leon Rose trade Barrett? Is Mitchell Robinson regressing? Does Fournier need to come off the bench? The answer to any of these questions is futile, for the issue runs much deeper than any single role player.

The inefficiency of the starting line-up starts with its highest-usage player. Randle’s recent accolades have distorted his (self-) image, and inflated his stature within the locker room and the organization, which had been desperately searching for a star since Carmelo Anthony left Manhattan. By all accounts, the Knicks found their star in Randle. Among his All-NBA peers however, the newest Knicks’ savior ranked last in scoring efficiency, last in on/off per 100 possessions, and second-to-last in net rating, behind only Bradley Beal. Randle does not belong in the NBA’s elite. Voters simply had to reward a Knick – they just chose the wrong one.

Entering this past offseason, the Knicks were in desperate need of a reset. Instead of steering the franchise in a clear direction, Leon Rose showed a commitment to mediocrity by renewing his trust in Scott Perry and Julius Randle, two figures whose NBA careers were mostly synonymous with losing, and whose impact on last season’s success was largely overstated.

Rose and the Knicks’ front office are scrambling, waiting for a seismic shift in the NBA’s landscape to dictate their next course of action as their flexibility shrinks, with Randle and Fournier’s multi-year deals on the books and Barrett’s contract extension looming on the horizon. Meanwhile, the starters are playing uninspired basketball and the sense of optimism that once surrounded the team is fading away.

The Knicks are the NBA’s U.S.S. Sulaco, drifting aimlessly in space, where galaxies are shaped like treadmills and the sound of midrange bricks reverberates like an inescapable reminder of the franchise’s irrelevance. At least they finally got the City jersey right this season – its color palette does indeed match the future of the club.