When it comes to dealing with a perennial loser, the backlash from fed-up fans, pundits, even team employees, is usually directed toward the players or the head coach, or the general manager, or the team’s owner.
When it comes to the New York Knicks, all of those positions at times have been plenty guilty over the past 20 years — especially when owner James Dolan’s name crops up in conversation.
He’s become the face of the organization’s downfall, and rightly so.
The Knicks have been the joke of the NBA since the start of the millennium. They have 15 losing seasons in the previous 18 and a 1-7 start to 2019-20 is all but guaranteeing a 16th in 19 years.
The personnel he’s brought in to run the team has been suspect. Whether you’re looking at general managers or head coaches, the list of incompetence is too numerous to fit on this page.
Nor do I really have the time, patience, or mental fortitude to re-hash some of those seasons.
But one name that for some reason has escaped the chopping block is team president Steve Mills — who celebrated quite on a milestone this week.
Wednesday night proved to be Mills’ 500th game with the Knicks organization, either as the general manager or team president. He assumed the role of the latter in 2017 after the departure of Phil Jackson.
It ended in a familiar result: a 122-102 loss to the Detroit Pistons as his record with the team now stands at an abysmal 164-336.
And that’s just dating back to 2013.
Mills previously served as the chief operating officer and sports business president of MSG where he was responsible for supervising day-to-day operations of the Knicks, Rangers, and Liberty from 2003-2009.
The Knicks made the playoffs just once.
When he took a four-year hiatus to work with Magic Johnson Enterprises, the Knicks made the postseason three times under GM Glen Grunwald.
Yet Mills still has a job with the organization. Probably because he has no problem doing Dolan’s dirty work.
A report from ESPN last month revealed that Dolan was the main reason why the Knicks’ last playoff team was broken up. He didn’t want to keep veteran players following a postseason berth and 54-win season in 2012-13.
Grunwald apparently, did not.
So Dolan fired Grunwald just days before the start of the 2013-14 season, brought in Mills, and the rest is history. The Knicks won 37 games that season and just 17 the next.
They haven’t won more than 32 games in a season since Mills’ return to the Garden, which included a second 17-win campaign last year. Their current streak of five-straight 50-loss seasons is a franchise record and No. 6 looks to be on its way shortly.
The Knicks struck out on big-name free agents and are taking the “Plan B” route of trying to build a young team.
Yet 30-year-old Marcus Morris is putting up the second-most minutes on the team so far while young, budding center Mitchell Robinson is taking a backseat to Julius Randle.
The finger-pointing will obviously be directed at head coach David Fizdale. But he has to try and win with a roster put together by Mills and GM Scott Perry.
They did nothing to help, which is par for the course when looking at Mills’ track record in the Big Apple.
