Without big stars, Knicks must depend on work ethic
Julius Randle of the Knicks tries to get to the hoop during the third quarter against Kevin Durant of the Nets at Barclays Center on Wednesday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
It was nearly two years ago that Tom Thibodeau scanned the landscape of the NBA and his own team and admitted the truth. Giannis Antetokounmpo had just agreed to a contract extension with the Milwaukee Bucks. He followed a path of stars who opted with the uncertainty of COVID stripping the NBA of cash to secure their futures rather than wait for free agency. And that spoiled the salary-cap space efforts of the Knicks front office.
"I think it’s critical, when you look at every team in the league, particularly the playoff teams, and there’s a lot of different paths to getting stars," Thibodeau said in December, 2020. "Sometimes it’s the development phase. … Sometimes you have to do it through trades, sometimes it’s free agency. But I think you have to be very aggressive in seeking out those opportunities. They just don’t happen by accident.”
Now, with the Knicks shambling along at 6-6 and the critical search for a star still a waiting game for the Knicks, it’s worth wondering just what happened to that aggressive pursuit? The Knicks have missed in free agency unless you consider the pickup of Jalen Brunson and Isaiah Hartenstein the haul Thibodeau was dreaming of, failed in trades — Donovan Mitchell the primary misfire this time, and it’s a hard argument than the Knicks have developed any stars.
And on the other side, they’ve seen what stars can do. In the Knicks first six losses this season it’s a who’s who of star power — Ja Morant, Antetokounmpo, Mitchell, Trae Young and Dejounte Murray, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and most recently, Kevin Durant. All of them star talent, all dominant in wins over the Knicks.
Brunson undoubtedly filled a need, providing a leader on the floor and in the locker room. Still, in Thibodeau’s tenure in New York he has had one All-Star — Julius Randle in the 2020-21 season. And despite all of the criticism Randle takes and that Thibodeau absorbs for his reliance on him, he remains the one player on the roster who occasionally demands a double team. As much as the huge scoring performances carry their teams, these stars open up opportunities for others.
“I think every team has different strengths and weaknesses,” Thibodeau said. “To your point what a guy like Durant is going to do is command two on the ball, and so when you get two on the ball, then how do they play off of that. … He reads defenses extremely well, he can beat you with the pass, too. When you have that type of player, it's the mark of what a great player is, to bring the best out of his teammates and he makes the game easier for them because of what he commands defensively. There's going to be two on him for a majority of the game.”
The Knicks have been doing the usual finger pointing internally as to why the deal for Mitchell never came to fruition. Some of it has pointed to bad information on whether the Cleveland Cavaliers, who landed Mitchell, were really in on a trade, some on the unwillingness to include a third unprotected first-round pick and some on the reality that the young talent the Knicks could have sent back wasn’t all that enticing.
The reality of the Knicks roster is that they don’t have a star, don’t have anyone who projects to be a star, instead stocked with a deep roster of second (or third) options. Consider this odd exercise — how many rosters would you hesitate to do a complete roster swap with the Knicks? The Lakers? Maybe if you don’t want an aging LeBron James or an oft-hobbled Anthony Davis, but debatable. The young rosters of teams like Detroit or Orlando? Washington? All a debate and there aren’t many that would even make you think twice.
Until they find the next target they are left to try to make due with what they have and that means playing like they did two years ago — harder and more prepared than the opposition. And a night like Wednesday in Brooklyn when they were blown out , RJ Barrett said afterward, “I think they just played harder than us tonight. They played harder. They played together.”
Brunson followed by saying, “It's not OK. It's something that we need to quickly recover from. I'm OK with missing shots. I'm OK with aggressive mistakes, but effort and heart from all of us, that's what we need. If you go out there and play as hard as we can, do what we can and a team beats us, we got to live with that. But when we know we didn't go out there with 110%, that's hard to live with. So, no, it's not OK. They played harder than us. We didn't play as hard as we could.”
They did play hard enough to beat the Pistons Friday with Brunson providing that toughness down the stretch. After Sunday afternoon’s meeting with the Oklahoma City Thunder (Shai Gilgeous Alexander the star the Knicks would covet and a stockpile of young talent and picks) the Knicks head out for a five-game, seven-night West Coast trip that has no easy marks.
The roster doesn’t have a star and if the Knicks can’t get their effort right this trip could make Brooklyn’s chaos look like a meditation retreat.
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.
