New York Knicks: Scott Perry will have power to restructure front office
One of the biggest questions surrounding the hiring of Scott Perry is how much power he’ll wield. The New York Knicks have partially revealed the answer.
The New York Knicks have embraced the need to hire executives with experience. With Steve Mills’ promotion to president came a vacancy at general manager—a vacancy that New York filled by hiring one of the most respected minds in basketball.
For as promising as the hiring of Scott Perry may be, there’s a lingering fear amongst Knicks fans that he’ll be undermined by his superior.
By the end of his tenure, more were in support of Phil Jackson as team president than some media outlets would like to admit. The recurring theme during his tenure, however, was criticism that the 13-time NBA champion was overstepping his boundaries.
According to Marc Berman of The New York Post, Mills made it clear that Perry will have the freedom and power to restructure the front office.
"“We’re going to rebuild what the front office of the Knicks looks like,’’ Mills said at Monday’s press conference. “I feel really good about a lot of the people we have working for us. But we also know there’s room for us to grow and get better if we want to be a first-class organization, and Scott will have the freedom to meet with everyone in our organization.“Where he sees there’s opportunities to bring new people into the organization, he has the flexibility to do that, and we’ll work as a tandem in making sure that we have a first-class operation.”"
That’s an encouraging sign that implies the working relationship between Perry and Mills will be constructive and without egos.
Perry has been a featured front office member for multiple NBA organizations. He helped Joe Dumars build the Detroit Pistons of the 2000s with a successful tenure that stretched from 2000 to 2007.
During that seven-year run, Dumars, Perry, and the Pistons won an NBA championship, reached a second NBA Finals, and made five Eastern Conference Finals appearances.
Perry later joined the Orlando Magic front office that drated Aaron Gordon, Victor Oladipo, and Elfrid Payton from two historically underwhelming talent pools.
Most recently, Perry helped Vlade Divac and the lowly Sacramento Kings change the culture. He’s credited with leading Sacramento to the drafting of the likes of De’Aaron Fox, Harry Giles, and Justin Jackson, as well as the signings of Vince Carter, George Hill, and Zach Randolph.
Having proven capable of assisting in the creation of promising young rosters, as well as the cultivation of a sustainably successful contender, Perry has clout in the NBA.
In turn, it appears as though he’ll have a measure of influence in the hiring of new front office scouts and executives with the Knicks.
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This is only a start, but this is an encouraging development. The New York Knicks are allowing general manager Scott Perry to do his job.