Knicks: Why retaining Scott Perry makes sense, for now

The Knicks surprised many fans by exercising Scott Perry’s option to keep him as general manager of the team through 2020-21.

It almost feels as if the Knicks are conducting a clinical trial. I shouldn’t be joking about such a thing as the world’s smartest scientists are racing to find a vaccine for the coronavirus. But in much less important basketball terms, the Knicks are embarking on a study to learn the impact of Scott Perry on their everlasting franchise ills.

What happens when you put Scott Perry with Steve Mills? What happens when you take away Steve Mills, but keep Scott Perry? What will happen when you eliminate both Mills and Perry?

We will have to wait to learn the answer to that last question, as the Knicks announced earlier this week that they will exercise Scott Perry’s option to keep him as general manager of the team through the 2020-21 season.

At this point in time, it’s difficult to say how much Perry’s short tenure at the Garden has hurt the franchise, as much as acted as a placebo for a team desperate for some healing juice.

Just like with Mills, when he acted as GM under team president Phil Jackson, it’s impossible, from afar, to separate which decisions where the result of Mr. Mills’ thinking, alone, versus which decisions were clouded by Perry’s judgment, versus which decisions were mostly dictated on Perry’s terms.

All of that said, as long as Scott Perry carries the title of general manager, he must live with the record of transactions under his name. But we will leave the nitty gritty breakdown of roster moves under Perry for a separate post, instead focusing on the high-level reasons why keeping him in his current job makes sense right now.

We are living in strange times

How do you conduct an expansive interview process amid a global pandemic?

New York City is a war zone, literally. As the novel coronavirus and its devastating disease, COVID-19, ravages the city, it’s impractical to believe any kind of business as usual can be conducted, including interviewing for a key basketball role.

I mean, James Dolan, himself, recently recovered from the virus. Nobody from any walk of life can be expected to operate independent of the pandemic. To expect the Knicks to complete an extensive interview process for a general manager during these difficult times is asking too much.

While you would expect Leon Rose to have a good idea of the NBA landscape of general managers, assistant GMs, and front office up-and-comers, and he could have counted on relationships he has built as an agent and augmented his knowledge of candidates with conversations over the phone, or Zoom, it’s not the same as a full-fledged interview process hosted in person.

With a deadline looming on Perry’s option in the beginning of May, Rose needed to decide if he was comfortable enough with the candidates he might have been considering, knowing he couldn’t complete a full interview process, or if it just made sense to stick with the status quo until he has more time to decide who should be in charge of day-to-day player decisions over the long run.

Of course, all of this assumes that Rose wasn’t just set on keeping Perry for another season (or longer) from the moment he took over, which brings us to the next point.

Continuity, Continuity, Continuity

The only thing constant about the Knicks management structure is that it is always changing. For a team that has had five head coaches, two general managers, and three team presidents, if you count Mills’ time in each of his roles separately, over the past five years, it might be time for a small amount of continuity.

It feels like Old Town Road lasted longer atop the charts than some Knicks decision makers did at MSG.

A new president brings a new vision, and just like players on the roster perform differently under different coaches (ahem, David Fizdale versus Mike Miller), executives, theoretically, can find different results under different bosses. Have you always been the same worker regardless of your supervisor? Or does it help when you have a really good boss?

We don’t know how many of Perry’s ideas presented to Mills died in his right ear, or how many player moves executed by Mills were in fact the brain child of Perry. The decision process will undoubtedly be different with Perry consulting with Rose, that much we do know. And the decision chain to reach Rose will also look familiar. Perhaps missed by many amid the Perry news, Ian Begley reports Allan Houston is a candidate to remain in the front office under Rose.

With Rose and cap specialist Brock Aller the new voices in command, the Knicks are able to maintain a sense of continuity with Perry and Houston, both respected voices within their respective roles. That should pay immediate dividends as the team will need to rely on institutional knowledge in preparing for the draft after an abbreviated scouting season.

Nothing is permanent

What do you call someone on a one-year deal? This isn’t the start of a bad joke (well, maybe it is). You call that person a lame duck. So I suppose Scott Perry received a slight promotion from “on his way out the door” to “lame duck.”

It’s not uncommon for new executives to keep direct reports from previous regimes for a period of time to learn as much as they can during the transition process, before ultimately deciding to bring in their own people. Think of it like a data dump.

As Rose tries to navigate the complicated inner walls of Madison Square Garden, it will be helpful to have people who have made decisions under James Dolan. He can learn from their mistakes. He can gain insight into how Dolan operates. He can assess whether there is an organizational problem, or a personnel issue in building a winning team.

While Ian Begley suggests Rose might keep Perry long-term, the two have a previous relationship from the Carmelo Anthony trade to Oklahoma City, don’t be surprised if Perry’s exercised option buys him months more than an entire calendar year.

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Whenever basketball returns to normal operations, and teams either finish or don’t finish the 2019-20 season, new candidates could emerge to take over the role of long-term GM of the Knicks. Right now, with everything on hold, perhaps making a long-term decision on the general manager of the team can wait a bit too.