Mike Brown is reportedly signing a four-year deal worth roughly $40 million to become the next head coach of the New York Knicks. The annual compensation is right in line with other top sideline chiefs, but the full scope of the contract proves once and for all that the Leon Rose-led front office is risking its job security with this hire.
Every coaching change can technically be framed in this way. Front offices, and more specifically, their lead decision-makers are on the hook for all major alterations. Blockbuster trades, marquee signings, salary dumps, coaching hires—they are all risks of varying calculations.
Still, Rose and company are under more pressure than most following this latest change. The devil is in the details—$70 million worth of details, in fact.
The Knicks just made a $70M bet on Mike Brown
As Ian Begley of SNY notes, the Knicks still owe the recently fired Tom Thibodeau around $30 million. That means they now have $70 million total tied up in head-coach salaries over the next four seasons.
Fans shouldn’t care about the money. It does not count against the cap, and we promise you that billionaire nepo-baby James Dolan can afford it. But having two coaches on the payroll for multiple years is teeming with implications. If Brown doesn’t pan out from the jump, you’d be smart to bet that Rose will not be the person in charge of hiring the next head coach.
Sure, plenty of other variables are at play, the absolute biggest of which is the team’s owner himself. Dolan was at least partially responsible for, if not the driving force behind, Thibs’ departure. That could give Rose and crew a little bit of latitude here—doubly so if we come to find Brown was also Dolan’s hand-picked choice.
Then again, we know that’s not how these things work. Whatever the level of Rose’s autonomy, and it’s pretty high by all accounts, he will be the person held responsible for Brown’s success, or his lack of it.
Hiring a new head coach is the Knicks’ last obvious change
Rose and the front office are under even more pressure when you consider New York’s overarching circumstances.
Changing head coaches is the franchise’s last obvious big move. Rose already exhausted the Knicks collection of assets. They can’t deal a first-round pick this summer even if they wanted to ship one out. And while Giannis Antetokounmpo-to-the-Big Apple speculation continues to abound, they are long shots to make any sort of seismic addition unless it turns out the rest of the league is exceptionally hot for Mikal Bridges, Karl-Anthony Towns, or OG Anunoby.
Plus, regardless of how much Rose may have been against Thibs’ firing, his offseason activity underscores the conviction he has in this exact core. The Knicks have effectively decided that they already employ a championship nucleus, and that the only changes required to actualize title aspirations were a coaching swap, and on-the-margins upgrades like Guerschon Yabusele and Jordan Clarkson.
This is a reasonable enough gambit. If it pays off, Rose and the rest of the front office will be celebrated. If it doesn’t, if the Knicks struggle out of the gate, if next season ends in similarly or more disappointing fashion compared to this one, well, don’t be surprised if and when someone else is responsible for running the show next summer.