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David Fizdale, Steve Mills And Scott Perry All Deserve Blame For Knicks’ Embarrassing Start

This article is more than 4 years old.

It looked like things were finally looking up for the Knicks on Friday night after they knocked off the Mavericks in Dallas. Would New York be able to build off this victory and string together a few wins in a row? Nope.

Any semblance of positive momentum they had built came crashing down a scant 48 hours later, when the Knicks were thoroughly embarrassed by the Cavs on their home court. After the blowout, president Steve Mills and general manager Scott Perry held an impromptu press conference.

"Scott and I are not happy with where we are right now," Mills said. "We think the team is not performing to the level that we anticipated, or we expected to perform at, and that's something that we think we collectively have to do a better job of delivering the product on the floor."

The following day, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported that "Mills had started to lay the internal groundwork for the eventual dismissal of coach David Fizdale."

While the Knicks 2-8 record is unacceptable, it's not a simple as blaming one individual. There is plenty of culpability to spread around.

Let's start with the product on the floor, and more specifically, the X's and O's, which is the responsibility of David Fizdale and the coaching staff. Yes, the roster lacks star power and is poorly constructed (we'll get into that later), but it's not as if this is team utterly devoid of talent. 

Last season, Julius Randle was an effective and, most notably, and efficient scorer. He averaged 21.4 points and converted over 52% of his field-goal attempts for the Pelicans. (The only other player in the league to average at least 21 points, eight boards and three assists while shooting over 52% was Giannis Antetokounmpo.) RJ Barrett, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2019 draft, set a freshman record by averaging over 22 points per game at Duke. Bobby Portis and Allonzo Trier have shown flashes of offensive potential. Wayne Ellington holds the all-time NBA record for most 3-pointers off the bench in a single season. Kevin Knox has shown some promise. Marcus Morris has averaged over 14 ppg over his last 300 NBA contests. Mitchell Robinson shot over 69% from the field last season, the highest percentage ever by a rookie.

While this team was expected to struggle mightily on the defensive end, it was assumed they'd at least be able to stay competitive by putting up plenty of points. Instead, the Knicks have been an absolute mess on offense over the first ten games of the year.

New York ranks dead last in Offensive Efficiency this season, as they are the only team in the league averaging fewer than 100 points per 100 possessions.

Fizdable's fingerprints are all over this carnage.

Not only has Fizdale's inability to formulate a consistent rotation been problematic, but the Knicks' utter absence of a coherent, competent, offensive system has been confounding. Fizdale has failed to put his players in position to succeed. The scarcity of innovative sets to create open looks is undeniably concerning. 

The lack of fluidity on the offensive end each night is alarming. All too often, limited ball and player movement result in an ugly offensive stagnation that leads to losses.

According to NBA.com data provided by Synergy, the Knicks rank dead last in the league, by a wide margin, in points scored off cuts. New York has run cutting action on just 3.6% of their total offensive plays this season, and are averaging only 4.6 PPG off cuts. Every other team in the league is averaging over five points per game.

Furthermore, the Knicks are also near the very bottom of the league in frequency (15.4%) and points scored (13.8 ppg) off pick-and-roll action. 

Meanwhile, New York is in the top-10 in Isolation frequency, despite that the fact that they don't have the personnel to succeed with such an approach. The Knicks rank 29th in the NBA in points per ISO possession, scoring a putrid 0.75 PPP.

Similarly, Fizdale's Knicks are continually dumping the ball into post-ups, even though it hasn't led to consistent, efficient production. Only four teams run more post-ups than New York: the Sixers, who feature Joel Embiid, the Lakers (Anthony Davis), the Spurs (LaMarcus Aldridge) and the Nuggets (Nikola Jokic). Those four squads have dominant big men that can dominate offensively on the low block or from the pinch post. 

The Knicks, on the other hand, are one of only nine teams in the league scoring less than 0.8 points per post-up possession. Excluding the four players noted above, there are only 15 players in the NBA currently with a post-up frequency greater than 15%. Three of those 15 are Knicks: Julius Randle, Bobby Portis and Marcus Morris.

Unsurprisingly, the Knicks average just 19.6 assists, which ranks 29th league-wide.

On the other end of the floor, the results have not been much better. New York ranks 20th in the NBA in Defensive Efficiency, allowing 109.5 points per 100 possessions.

And, outside of the raw numbers, arguably, the most distressing aspect of the Knicks 2019-20 campaign has been their befuddling and inexcusable lack of effort and intensity on occasion. In back-to-back Sunday's, New York was run off the floor inside MSG by sub-.500 teams. Losing to the Kings and Cavs is one thing; failing even to put forth a respectable effort is reprehensible. At every level of athletics, a coach has to take at least some responsibly if his team plays without heart.

Sum it all up, and the Knicks have a point differential of -10.1, which ranks dead last in the league. Yes, they are the only team in the NBA getting outscored by double digits on a nightly basis.  

Now, does Fizdale deserve all the blame for this mess? Certainly not. It's difficult to develop chemistry and cohesion while working with so many new players. And, yes, New York has also been playing without two of their three points guards for the past couple of weeks. Still, it's not as if every other team in the league is 100% healthy and playing with the same players as last season. For instance, consider the Phoenix Suns. They seemingly debunk the theory that wholesale roster turnover and unfamiliarity prevent early-season success. Not only did they lose No. 1 overall pick Deandre Ayton to a 25-game suspension, but four of the six players that have logged over 200 minutes for Phoenix in 2019-20 weren't on the team last year. Yet the Suns (6-3) have more wins than the Spurs, Blazers, Magic and Nets, among others. Head coach Monty Williams deserves a ton of credit for Phoenix's impressive performance thus far.

The Celtics, currently riding an eight-game winning streak, have the league's best record despite replacing Kyrie Irving and Al Horford. The Raptors, who lost Kawhi Leonard and are currently playing without Kyle Lowry (thumb) and Serge Ibaka (sprained right ankle), have the second-best record in the conference. 

Yet, it's abundantly apparent that the Knicks all-round talent isn't anywhere close to the Celtics or Raptors. And, when discussing roster construction, this is where Mills and Perry have to accept a healthy heaping of blame. 

Once the Knicks struck out on top-tier free-agent targets such as Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, they quickly pivoted by throwing cash at a slew of players they felt would immediately make the Knicks more competitive. Unwilling to spend another year solely looking toward the future, New York's front office made a calculated decision to attempt to improve their win/loss record instantly, while also aiming to develop the young foundational pieces in place.

Yet, based on the early returns, it appears Mills and Perry dropped the ball.

Remember, it was just six weeks ago, at media day, that Mills claimed: "There were a lot of max-type players who we could have met with, that were interested in coming here. We had a certain way we wanted to build this team. This is how we chose to build it."

The popular and repeated criticism from pundits since this summer is that New York stupidly signed too many power forwards. However, that's not entirely accurate. The reality is the Knicks desperately needed to add depth up front. While the team had plenty of guards and wings already on the roster (Dennis Smith Jr., Frank Ntilikina, RJ Barrett, Damyean Dotson, Allonzo Trier), they had only one legitimate center (Mitchell Robinson) and no rotation-ready PF's. Thus, the problem wasn't that they brought in too many power-forwards (Portis has played plenty of center, Morris has started at SF, etc), its that they signed inefficient players, for too much money.

Ideally, New York would have rented out its abundance of cap space in exchange for draft picks and future assets. For instance, in early July, the Grizzlies took advantage of Warriors desperate need to create cap room (to facilitate the D'Angelo Russel sign-and-trade deal) by trading Julian Washburn to Golden State in exchange for Andre Iguodala and a lightly protected first-round draft pick. Similarly, the LA Clippers turned their excess cap space into Maurice Harkless (via Blazers) and a protected 2023 first-round pick (via Heat) as part of the massive four-team trade.

Of course, the reason Mills and Perry likely felt pressured to show tangible signs of immediate improvement was the Kristaps Porzingis trade. Ostensibly, as a result of having Dennis Smith Jr. on the roster, the Knicks never even considered making a run at quality point guards such as Malcolm Brogdon, D'Angelo Russell and Ricky Rubio.  

Ultimately, the Porzingis blockbuster will define the legacies of Mills and Perry in New York. While we won't be able to fairly or accurately assess the trade for a few more years, the offseason strikeouts and both Dennis Smith Jr's and the team's struggles early this season, aren't overly encouraging bellwethers. Just as importantly, when judging Mills' tenure with the Knicks, it's important to note that one of the reasons the Porzingis trade appealed to the Knicks was it allowed New York to dump Tim Hardaway Jr's gruesomely bloated contract. And, it was Mills that inexplicably signed Hardaway to a four-year, $71 million deal, that became an albatross the moment the ink dried. (That same summer, Mills was also responsible for signing Ron Baker to a ludicrous two-year deal worth $8.9 million, that included a player option.)

Clearly, all involved deserve some share of the blame for the Knicks' current predicament. And, if we are looking at the big picture, owner James Dolan is the one consistent thread in the disastrous first two decades of the 21st century. Dating back to the start of the 2000-01 season, the Knicks have lost more games than any other NBA franchise. During this destructive two-decade stretch, the Knicks have had more head coaches (12) than total playoff victories (9).  

So, looking ahead, what is the plan? It's been widely assumed and reported that the Mills-Perry presser was intended to "serve notice" that Fizdale is now on the hot seat. But is that what's best for the future of the organization. If the Knicks win six of their next ten games, what does that prove? Typical, a head coach that is potentially coaching with his career on the line will (understandably) make short-sided adjustments to quickly pick up much-needed wins, possibly to the detriment of the franchise's long-term objectives and development of the team's youngsters. 

Come December 15th, the free agents New York signed this offseason will be eligible to be traded. If Mills and Perry are feeling pressure to prove to their owner that they are capable of building a winning team, might they be motivated to implement short-term fixes? 

The reality is the Knicks do have a relatively solid foundation in place. The key question moving forward should not be whether or not this team can eke out 30 wins in 2019-20. That shouldn't be the determining factor in whether or not Fizdale is the right man for the job. Instead, is Fizdale qualified to guide and develop this promising young core?

Ditto for the front office. Should Mills and Perry be entrusted to round out the roster around RJ Barrett, Mitchell Robinson, Kevin Knox and Frank Ntilikina? 

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