The Knicks announced on Wednesday that they signed general manager Scott Perry to a one-year contract extension that would keep him in the position through next season. The announcement came as a surprise to many since new president Leon Rose was expected to completely revamp the Knicks front office.
Then SARS-CoV-2 happened. The Knicks decision to retain Perry through next season has to be viewed through that prism and should not be seen as Rose committing to the same path the Knicks were traveling down before he was hired.
If Perry’s extension was for more than a year, alarm bells should be ringing across Knicks land. A one-year extension does not signal a long-term commitment to Perry. Instead, it should be seen as Rose valuing continuity and stability during a time where the league and the timetable of an important offseason for the Knicks is in flux.
Extending Perry makes sense for a few reasons: If the draft is delayed past June 28, (which is guaranteed unless the league cancels the season in the next couple of months) depending on the exact nature of Perry’s contract, it might have expired before the draft and left the Knicks without a general manager to help Rose through it.
Perry is already familiar with the current year’s draft class and can manage the Knicks current scouting department. He has a lot of experience managing a draft room and coordinating the process of building a draft board.
The Knicks could have tried to bring in someone new to do those things, but coronavirus would have made the interview process difficult, especially with James Dolan having fallen ill. In addition, building a brand new scouting department and front office in two months in this environment would have been near impossible. The scouting work on the current class was completed nearly two months ago when basketball stopped being played.
In other words, the Knicks would have had the same scouting staff and process, but with someone else in charge of it that was unfamiliar with how the group functions. There were a lot of risks to such an arrangement.
The most important thing to remember is that even with Scott Perry as general manager, the man making the ultimate decision on draft night will be Rose. Think of Perry as his executive officer. He is executing tasks on Rose’s behalf, getting all the information together to present to Rose, taking care of all the necessary logistics on draft night.
Perry might give Rose a recommendation on who to draft, but ultimately it will be Rose, much like Phil Jackson and Steve Mills before him, that will draft the player that moves the Knicks in the direction he wants to take them in. Perry could influence Rose’s decision, but it would be surprising if he allowed someone like Perry, who he didn’t hire, to sway his first major player personnel decision away from who he wants to select.
This pick will be put on Rose’s ledger, the same way Kevin Knox and RJ Barrett are on Steve Mills’ and Frank Ntilikina is on Jackson’s. The truth of the matter is that no one really knows exactly what moves Mills did that Perry liked, and which ones he didn’t. Was last year’s choice of how to use the Knicks cap space Perry’s master plan, or did it belong to Steve Mills?
With that said, Perry has done little to inspire confidence given the results and the organization’s process since he became general manager. There has been little creativity in how they use their cap space and scant outside the box thinking with Perry as general manager.
With Brock Aller, the Team’s Vice President of Basketball Strategy on board, he should be able to help spearhead managing the cap in free agency this summer. Rose, meanwhile, will make the tough decisions as to how aggressive the team should be in pursuing free agents.
Going through the players the Knicks drafted or signed is immaterial since we don’t know what moves were spearheaded by Mills versus Perry. No one knows what the Knicks roster would look like if Perry had complete control.
The short nature of the contract means the Knicks can move on from Perry early as midseason 2020-21 if Rose finds a suitable replacement. There’s a chance he just needs more time to find his general manager of choice, or maybe he is just waiting for the right candidate’s contract to expire?
Either way, Perry’s extension should not be viewed as important or critical by Knicks fans. Rose is still the man in charge and the length of Perry’s extension shows this is more of a “prove it” year for Perry than a long term commitment. If this one-year extension turns into a long-term commitment, a more urgent conversation needs to happen. But as a one year stop-gap, there’s little to be too concerned about.