On Leon Rose, the new Culture King of New York
The Knicks were in a downward spiral before the hiring of Leon Rose in February of 2020. Now, a year and a half later, Rose has the team turned in a completely different direction, turning New York into a legitimate on-the-rise team with an upper-echelon culture.
I think it’s fair to say that the Knicks have outperformed all of our expectations in the past year.
We got to root for our team in the NBA Playoffs for the first time in eight years. We got to celebrate Julius Randle’s Most Improved Player Award and Coach Tom Thibodeau’s Coach of the Year Award. The team is no longer the laughing stock to the rest of the NBA, and they are a fairly enticing free agent destination for many players across the league. It’s FUN to root for the Knicks again, which I can’t say was the case two seasons ago. The Knicks are not the dysfunctional, dramatic team they have been in the past, and the man who deserves the majority of the credit for that is the man and his supporting cast — Leon Rose and his front office.
The organization made very patient and calculated moves in free agency — bringing back the core group of guys that helped the Knicks get to the playoffs last season on low risk, high reward contracts, and adding players who are able to pick up where last season’s roster was lacking. After the playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks, it was clear that the Knicks needed a shooting threat. In free agency, rather than pursue a big name that would have been expensive to trade for, the Knicks traded cash to get Evan Fournier, who is arguably a great upgrade in the shooting guard/small forward position over Reggie Bullock.
The Knicks were also able to acquire Bronx native Kemba Walker on a two-year, $17.9 million contract, after Walker asked for a buyout from the Oklahoma City Thunder for the remaining two years and $70-plus million left on his contract. Now, if we had the older regime in this same situation, you best believe they are trading the house for Kemba, regardless of the monster contract that they’d have to trade for. However, Rose waited patiently and methodically got Walker after a buyout, signing him to a much lower-risk contract. Walker has always been a player on the Knicks’ radar — a great point guard and a New York native — but the opportunity to bring him home had never presented itself until this year. He now gets to play for the team in his home city, and the Knicks get a point guard who is a significant upgrade from last season.
Rose has completely changed the public perception of the Knicks as an organization. The players want to be there and are PROUD to wear blue and orange. We've all seen so many Knicks players on social media practicing and pushing it in the offseason, preparing to pick up where they left off last season. Fans are filling the street after winning a game, celebrating like the Knicks just won a championship.
You can even see it in the way the organization has handled the vaccination process and NBA Media Day. Almost every other team in the league has had some sort of issue with a player refusing to get vaccinated or saying something controversial about the requirements imposed by the city they play in (just look across the East River). The biggest “drama” from NBA Media Day from the Knicks was the ugly SquareSpace logo on their jerseys (which seriously need to go, they are genuinely eyesores). When that is the only major issue that the team has had to deal with, that says a lot about the culture change that Rose has overseen in under two calendar years.
It’s very clear that Rose has experience when it comes to dealing with NBA players and negotiating contracts. As a former agent for Creative Artists Agency (CAA), he has represented countless big names, including Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, and Joel Embiid. It’s safe to say he knows his way around the NBA.
Other than his stellar basketball IQ, he possesses a quality that makes the people around him better. It’s pretty obvious that Rose is one of the more private executives the organization has had in recent years. He has made it very clear to the media and the public that he is not concerned with answering questions for reporters or addressing the public, but rather letting the actions he makes with his team and organization speak for him. He’s only addressed the media a handful of times, the latest being to update the public on Mitchell Robinson’s injury. Rose has taken a hands-off approach with the PR game and let the product he has put together do the talking for him.
That type of mentality has completely taken over. No one within the organization cares about their media perception — they do what they need to do, work together as a team, and keep things strictly about the game. Fans got a glimpse of that after seeing the “Defensive Musts” and “Offensive Musts” list in the Knicks’ training facility on the first day of training camp. In the picture, fans can see all the different things the team wants on the offensive and defensive ends, but the most important part of those posters is the mantra written at the bottom — “Play For Each Other.”
It was clear at the beginning of last season that many fans were concerned about how Rose would do as the president of the organization. We as fans were still trying to recover from the Phil Jackson and Steve Mills fiasco, which resulted in arguably the lowest point of the Knicks’ organization both on and off the court. Many fans were also worried that Rose would favor his former CAA coworkers and clients, rather than signing players based on how well they mesh with the rest of the team. And who could blame us for being wary? Rose didn’t come into the job with any executive experience and had spent most of his professional career being on the other end of contract negotiations. But Rose has proven this past year that he deserves a good amount of credit for building up a team that was on a downward spiral into a team that made it to the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference and is starting this new season featuring many low-risk, high-reward contracts.
As for the future, I can honestly say that I, and so many other Knicks fans, are so excited to see what Leon Rose and the Knicks can accomplish with these new upgrades and focused offseason. He has laid a great foundation for this team in the last year and has rebuilt the attitude people have about the Knicks. After years of ridicule and frustrating defeats, Rose has put a product out there that has forced people to pay attention again. He has made meticulous moves that won’t hurt the Knicks in the future if they don’t pan out. The New York Knicks are a threat in the Eastern Conference again, and they only figure to get better this season and beyond under Leon’s leadership.
