Knicks' rebuild will be a different process than 76ers'
RJ Barrett is met by 76ers' Tobias Harris, who scored 34 points in win over Knicks. Credit: AP/Matt Slocum
PHILADELPHIA — In the days before he was selected to be the next president of the Knicks, Leon Rose could be found courtside at the Wells Fargo Center, not far from his South Jersey home, mingling with his stable of star talent.
But when the Knicks took the floor to face the 76ers on Thursday night, Rose stayed away, which perhaps is for the best, given that he no longer has a stable of star talent. He could have gotten a clear view of the work in front of him, though.
Having watched the 76ers for years, he witnessed the process they took. They acquired young talent and put it in place, quickly deciding which players were keepers and which would be shipped out for the next draft picks or pieced together for packages that brought the likes of Tobias Harris aboard.
Harris scored 23 of his 34 points in the first half as the 76ers — playing without Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons — built leads of as many as 20 points before holding on for a 115-106 win over the Knicks.
After the Knicks got within five, Harris hit a three-pointer with 1:52 left to make it 110-102. After Julius Randle (30 points) misfired from deep, Harris, who added seven rebounds and seven assists, fed Shake Milton (19 points) for another three.
“Tobias Harris played great tonight,” Knicks interim coach Mike Miller said. “Shake Milton was 5-for-5 from three. Al Horford was 4-for-4 from three. They had 15 threes. They got good performances from the guys we anticipated they would play through. We didn’t put up enough resistance.”
While the success of Philadelphia’s formula of tanking for picks can be debated, it’s hard to argue that they were better at it than the Knicks. With three straight lottery picks on their roster (and another one in Kristaps Porzingis who was dealt away), the Knicks (17-42) are well on their way to a seventh straight losing season.
Rose is expected to officially begin his tenure Sunday, transitioning from agent to team president. What he will inherit is a group that holds little of the promise that the 76ers’ young talent possessed in the early years of their rebuild. The lottery picks on the Knicks’ roster — Frank Ntilikina, Kevin Knox and RJ Barrett (if you’d like, you can include Dennis Smith Jr., who was a Mavericks lottery pick before being part of the Porzingis trade) — have yet to establish themselves as stars.
Ntilikina was out of action Thursday with a strained groin. Barrett was in the starting lineup, as he has been almost all season. And Knox? He might be the most confounding of the trio. He
played just 7:50, all in the first half, shooting 0-for-3 from the field and 1-for-4 from the line.
Knox insisted that even if the numbers don’t show it — his minutes and starts have been cut drastically — he has grown.
“I definitely think I’ve gotten a lot better,” he said. “Just go out there, trying to get better defensively. One of the things I tried to take on this summer, just having a better defensive approach . . . I really want to lock in defensively, lock in on making those extra plays.’’
The Knicks were intent on improving from last season’s 17-65 record, but when they traded Marcus Morris and removed Steve Mills as team president, it seemed as if it were time for the younger players to start. But Knox remains on the bench, and even when Taj Gibson was kept out of action with a back issue, rather than start Mitchell Robinson, Miller inserted Bobby Portis. Robinson did play 32 minutes, recording six points, eight rebounds and three blocks.
Notes & quotes: Smith did not play in the second half, suffering concussion-like symptoms after taking an elbow to the head.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
