Then what?
With scores of players shuffling in and out year after year, the Knicks are the most active revolving door in Manhattan. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2013, and hadn’t won a playoff series before that since 2000. If Mills and Perry can honor a level of trust and consistency, that’s a stepping-stone achievement in itself. Hoping for a postseason is futile without a foundation.
While the 76ers and Celtics climb their way to the top, the Knicks will be studying and soul-searching. It’d be foolish to expect upwards of 30 wins come 2018-19. They must be allowed the space to breathe and build.
But within the next three seasons, they’ll need to be able to compete with their Atlantic Division neighbors. That’s plenty of time for Mills, Perry, and Fizdale to engineer a winning culture and reestablish the reputation of one of the NBA’s original franchises. It’s plenty of time for Porzingis to get his sea legs back under him and resume All-Star level play. And it’s plenty of time to render New York a desirable free agency destination for superstars.
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The future of New York basketball is foggy. New Yorkers might even call it smoggy. But if the Knicks can commit to this patient paradigm shift for the greater good, the light may break through sooner than our conditioned cynicism would allow us to believe.