Knicks’ front office desperately needs to follow Sam Presti’s lead
The New York Knicks are a week into the offseason. One would assume that someone from the front office would’ve held a press conference (or have one scheduled) to address the past season and what’s to come. That hasn’t happened for the Knicks, nor does it look like it will.
In Oklahoma City, general manager Sam Presti held his annual exit interview on Monday to speak with the media and it lasted for over two hours. Why? Because he wanted to be sure to answer everyone’s questions. There doesn’t seem to be a world where that’d happen in New York.
On the final day of the Knicks’ regular season, an interview with president Leon Rose was aired on MSG Network. Mike Breen is the one who interviewed Rose, but you’d be foolish to think that Rose wasn’t made aware of the questions beforehand. Also, to no surprise, it wasn’t live.
The standard is drastically different for the Thunder. Presti’s proven more than once that he knows what it takes to lead a franchise and his most recent presser was no different.
Good for Presti to do this. He said at the start of his press conference: "I'll sit here until the last question is asked...I see it as part of my responsibility to be available at the beginning and end of the season and stand here until you guys don't have anything else to ask." https://t.co/W2Z1EmcBFt
— Mike Vorkunov (@MikeVorkunov) April 18, 2022
New York Knicks need to mirror Sam Presti’s leadership in Oklahoma City.
Rose’s aired interview with Breen appears to have been meant to take place of a sit-down with the media. Fans aren’t asking for Rose to volunteer over two hours of his time like Presti did (although that’d be nice), but are instead asking for a bit of transparency.
That seems too good to be true. No one from New York’s front office is going to sit down and detail every move that the organization hopes to make or address past moves that haven’t panned out well. That isn’t the expectation, either.
Once the 2021-22 season concluded, Rose addressed season-ticket holders in an email, in which he included:
"“We recognize this team-build will be a steady climb, but there are real examples of progress and success, especially from our young core, that we can acknowledge and celebrate,” read his email."
It’s good to know that he understands the Knicks’ most obvious strength, which is the team’s young core. It doesn’t take someone in the front office to realize that, though.
New York’s taken a fall over the last decade and the 2020-21 season appeared to be the beginning of the end of nearly a decade’s worth of suffering. We know now that wasn’t the case, but there’s still light at the end of the tunnel. That light is the youth.
Do you think that Presti would be willing to fly to Manhattan and share his thoughts about the Knicks organization? Now that would be enlightening. There’s a greater chance of that happening than someone from New York’s front office doing the same.
At least RJ Barrett addressed the crowd at Madison Square Garden on the final day of the regular season. He gets it. Sigh.
