In a league of stars, the New York Knicks are sans-star. Starless. Pitch black. Quiet. An empty NY night sky. What follows are measured and objective portraits of the architects of The Great Knick Rebuild: 20.0. These are our star builders. The everyday heroes who operate in the shadows. In this, the endless offseason, with Knicks basketball a dusty and distant half-memory, take comfort in the existence of these invisible heroes. Beavering tirelessly towards the mythical competitive promised land, or at the very least, somewhere less shitty than here, less shitty than now. 

In Part 4 of the series: Kenny “The Big Man Whisperer” Payne.

(Check out Part 1, featuring Walt Perrin, Part 2, featuring Brock Aller, and Part 3, featuring Johnnie Bryant, if you haven’t already!)

There was nothing quiet about University of Kentucky alumni Bam Adebayo and Anthony Davis in the 2020 NBA playoffs. Whilst we were cruelly denied a healthy head-to-head duel in the Finals, with Bam either sidelined or limited with a neck injury, the brilliance of these two big men was deafening. Whether it was the roar of the Lakers bench as AD sank a walk-off three to see off the Denver Nuggets in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals, or Adebayo’s primal snarl after baptizing Daniel Theis with a dunk, kickstarting a crucial fourth quarter run in a series-clinching Game 6 in the Eastern Conference Finals — both men played big, played loud, and played their way into a chance at all the NBA marbles.

Their detonation contributed heavily to the soundtrack of the ethereal bubble playoffs, and resonated all the more for bouncing off the walls of eerie Disney gyms, the roaring culmination of work already done, thousands of times over, in thousands of empty gyms. It began back in Kentucky. Many empty gyms ago. Both men were recipients of a particular instruction. A whisper. Words of wisdom and encouragement from the lips of perhaps the most influential assistant coach in college basketball this century, now embarking on his first season as an assistant coach in the NBA, with the New York Knicks: Kenny Payne.

They call him the big-man whisperer. He tames, trains, and transforms some of the most athletically-gifted college prospects in the world. A lot of the time, he sets them on a path toward NBA stardom. The fruits of his whispering, the exploits of his many proteges, the evidence of his work, can be seen all over the Association, but was particularly prominent this postseason in the play of AD and Bam.

Here’s Davis, who averaged 27.7 points, 9.7 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.2 steals and 1.4 blocks these playoffs, on his pre-Kentucky, pre-Kenny Payne, skillset:

“When I got to Kentucky, I couldn’t do a post move. I was very, very raw… I was like a baby giraffe that just came out of the womb — the way they walk, wobbling around on their skinny legs.” 

AD is actually saved in Kenny’s phone as “baby giraffe”, which is testament to the metamorphosis that Payne whispered into existence. It’s a subtle and private flex on KP’s part. Whenever he gets a text from one of the most versatile big men in NBA history, he’s reminded of how far AD has come as a player, and how he himself helped lay the foundations, back in an empty Kentucky gym. From baby giraffe to apex NBA predator, Coach Payne’s fingerprints are all over the evolution of the player who, this postseason, has flummoxed an entire philosophy of basketball. Small ball against Anthony Davis is losing ball. The baby giraffe is all grown up, and is much too big, much too skilled for the two-way trade-off to be worth the squeeze for NBA teams who try to downsize.

AD may be one of a kind, and is the first name on KP’s resume, but he’s by no means the only name. Bam Adebayo, arguably, should be the second name on that distinguished resume. For the league at large, 2019-20 will be remembered as a broken season. For Bam, though, it’s unequivocally been his breakout campaign, a line in the sand for the trajectory of his career. Here’s Payne on the 23-year-old two-way berserker, who averaged 17.8 points, 10.3 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 1 steal, and just under 1 block per game these playoffs: 

"Give me the guy who will do anything to win — the guy who will block a shot at a critical moment, or switch onto a guard and shut him down."

This quote perfectly encapsulates Bam’s defensive value. He not only does everything, but does everything at an extremely high level. He switches with ease, inhales isolation attempts, and pinballs around the court in perfect help rotations. He blocks shots, snatches rebounds and forces deflections. Bam is to Swiss Army Knives what Swiss Army Knives are to toothpicks. And this versatility extends to the offensive end, too, where he can pass, handle, and score. How many other players in the NBA can truly anchor a defense on one end, and orchestrate an offense on the other?

There’s no doubt, KP was smiling whilst watching these NBA Finals, with Bam and AD facing off. Knicks fans should be smiling too, because in Mitchell Robinson, the Knicks have a tantalizing toy for Kenny to get his teeth into. There aren’t many silver linings to this elongated offseason, but the potential development of Mitch under the tutelage of Payne is definitely the brightest of the bunch. Robinson was easily the most impactful Knick on the team last season. An achievement even more impressive given the meagre developmental support system, disastrously clunky roster, and midseason flux both on the sidelines as well as in the front office.

Mitch is a baby giraffe, but he’s a baby giraffe who already impacts winning in the NBA, just by virtue of his preposterous athleticism. This isn’t a bad starting point for Kenny to come in and whisper sweet big-man nothings into Mitch’s eager ears during these pandemic workouts. What’s the saying? When life gives you unlimited time in the gym with perhaps the most athletic 7-footer in the NBA and one of the most accomplished developmental coaches in the world, make All-NBA lemonade? Something like that. You probably get the point. 

The same point applies to Julius Randle and Kevin Knox, two more Kentucky alumni, who have similarly uncertain futures in New York. Both players are former top-10 picks, largely based off the promise they showed in solitary college seasons at Kentucky, promise that was maximized and channelled by — you guessed it — Kenny Payne. If KP can rekindle that connection with his former Wildcat one-and-done wonders and coax some consistent two-way production out of either player, it’s no exaggeration to say he could be saving — and in some ways, starting — their careers in orange and blue.

After four years playing college ball at the University of Louisville, the seeds of Payne’s coaching journey were planted, not long after he was selected 19th by the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1989 NBA Draft. A little wet behind the ears in the lead-up to his rookie campaign, a 23-year-old Kenny was fortunate enough to be invited to a serendipitous offseason workout with none other than Hakeem Olajuwon, who, at the age of 26, was just entering his prime. Understandably, Payne couldn’t shake his time spent in the gym with The Dream, in part tracing his success with today’s best big men back to that time spent working out with one of the all-time greats.

“When I think about Anthony and Julius and Willie and Karl,” Payne says, “I go back to those 10 days I spent working out with and competing against Olajuwon.”

Kenny only played 1167 minutes over four seasons in the NBA with the Sixers, logging 10 total playoff minutes for a career postseason tally of six points. After that, he hooped all over the world, before transitioning to a career in coaching. Eventually, after doggedly knocking on as many coaching doors as he could think of, he got his chance. In 2000, he got a gig at a coaching clinic featuring longtime Kentucky head coach (then at Memphis) and college basketball behemoth, John Calipari, and run by coach Cal’s mentor, Larry Brown. He parlayed this clinic invite into an unpaid NBA internship with Brown’s Detroit Pistons. William Wesley, AKA World Wide Wes — now officially a part of the Knicks front office, after a decade of unofficial Knicks front office influence — helped open coaching doors for Payne, who for a time even crashed at Wesley’s apartment in Detroit. The two met way back at Louisville, and Kenny now considers Wes to be one of his best friends. Once he got his foot in the coaching door, he wasn’t going to let it close, for fear it wouldn’t open again.

Fast forward 20 years, and he’s working alongside his old friend Wes for a Knick franchise that hasn’t sniffed the playoffs for years. One whisper at a time, one workout at a time, one empty gym at a time; the hope is that Kenny Payne can continue his run of turning baby giraffes into primetime postseason performers. Maybe Mitchell Robinson can develop the kind of game that one day gets his name on KP’s star-studded resume. With any luck, Mitch getting his name on that holy grail of resumes will mean Kenny won’t actually need to update the thing for a while. A few seasons at least. Hell, maybe even a few postseasons. Maybe he can persuade Knox to spread his NBA wings a little more, and, for that matter, persuade Randle to spread his a little less.

Here’s hoping Kenny watched these NBA Finals and enjoyed his handiwork with a well-earned smile. Here’s hoping Mitch also watched the Finals and saw where hard work; where a whisper; where night after night of sweat unseen in empty gym after empty gym, can take you.

And here’s hoping, most of all, that Kenny is getting plenty of texts from his new big man, saved in his phone — equal parts prophecy and plan — as “Baby Giraffe 2.0.”

*Check out these two incredible Kenny Payne profiles for the Athletic — one by Mike Vorkunov, and one by Kyle Tucker — both of which I leaned on heavily in writing this piece.*