Do the Knicks have the right people in place to land a star?

Throughout the season at Madison Square Garden, you'd see hats in Knick colors sold with "We Here" across the front — a phrase closely associated with last year's squad.

Players said it throughout 2020-21 season, and it was the perfect fit for a team that beat expectations to finish fourth in the Eastern Conference.

These days? The hat looks a little out of place at the Garden.

The Knicks are wrapping up a season in which they'll miss the Play-In Tournament and finish below .500. They enter the offseason with little cap flexibility and significant questions about the short-term future of the franchise.

Now when you hear the phrase "We Here," you're left wondering where, exactly, "here" is.

We're taking a look at some of the moves that got the Knicks to this point — and what’s possible moving forward...

When team president Leon Rose took over, the Knicks had significant cap flexibility and a bevy of first-round picks.

That flexibility was mostly a product of former president Steve Mills and current GM Scott Perry refusing to part with future first-rounders in trades. That edict dated back to Phil Jackson’s tenure. In addition to holding on to their own picks, Mills and Perry acquired two first-round picks in the Kristaps Porzingis trade. And, following Perry’s arrival, the club signed players to short-term deals.

Rose & Co. had maintained that approach early on. They inked players to short-term deals and held on to their draft picks. But they signed Julius Randle to a five-year extension in the 2021 offseason. They also added Derrick Rose, Nerlens Noel, Alec Burks, Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier to contracts with at least two guaranteed seasons.

The moves didn’t translate to on-court success.

New York struggled to find consistency after a 5-1 start. The chemistry between Walker, Fournier and Randle didn’t develop. Randle’s shooting regressed. Rose underwent surgery to repair an ankle injury in late December and hasn’t returned to the court. Noel has been in and out of the lineup.

And the Knicks enter the week with a 35-44 record and an opportunity this offseason to turn things around.

But, as one former coach who observes the Knicks and has won and lost in the league observed recently:

“Is anything different or did the Knicks just have a mirage of a season last year? Is this just Knicks history repeating itself?

“If I’m (Knicks owner James) Dolan and Rose, that would be the one thing I don’t want to happen.”

This offseason should go a long way toward answering that question.

Rose & Co. will have to decide on the future of head coach Tom Thibodeau, how best to re-shape the roster, and how to approach the draft.

WHAT TO DO WITH THIBODEAU?

Sometime after the Knicks’ loss to Brooklyn prior to the All-Star break, Dolan told Rose that the decision to keep Thibodeau or let him go was Rose’s call. It was made clear then that the finances involved would not factor into the decision. Thibodeau has at least one guaranteed season left on his five-year contract.

Rose, obviously, has decided to keep Thibodeau at this point. Bleacher Report reported that Rose had decided earlier this month that Thibodeau, the 2021 NBA Coach of the Year, would be back next season.

SNY has not independently confirmed that. People in touch with the Knicks and Thibodeau expect the coach to return next season. If he is back, people familiar with the situation believe Thibodeau will be under strong scrutiny early next season if the club falters.

If Thibodeau is fired before the end of his five-year contract, the Knicks will be looking for their 13th head coach since the 2001-02 season.

The club has also been through eight lead executives in that span.

To the veteran former coach, letting Thibodeau go and allowing Rose to stay would be a mistake,

“I just don’t want the Knicks to do the Knicks thing. It just keeps churning. There’s always something better on the horizon,” he said.

“To me, all organizations, but particularly organizations with a history of losing, they should tie together coaches (and executives). (In New York), Thibodeau and Rose should be tied together. When one of you goes, both of you go.”

As SNY reported, there was a time in December when some players questioned Thibodeau’s handling of Walker. Walker said he didn’t speak to Thibodeau after the coach made the decision to bench him early in the year. Some players felt that Thibodeau could have handled the communication differently. They also felt the decision revealed a lack of consistency in how players were held accountable.

If Thibodeau “lost” the locker room at that point, it hasn’t revealed itself on the court.

The Knicks have won 10 of 16 games heading into Wednesday’s game against Brooklyn.

“I think that whole lost the locker room is one of the most misunderstood phrases in sport as it relates to coach-player relations,” the former coach said. “The idea that you either have the locker room or have lost the locker room and there’s no continuum on it – it’s just one or the other – it’s just naïve.

“I don’t think I’ve been around one NBA team where there aren’t people at different points in the year, unhappy with their contract, their playing time, their amount of shots. You want constants in our league, those are three.”

“How you really understand if a team and coach are communicating well is watch with your eyes: Are they playing well and are they playing together. Then you have good communication. You might have the problem of losing more than you’d like, but you don’t have the problem of a locker room that’s supposedly been lost.”

Based on those elements, Thibodeau hasn’t lost the locker room; but he’s played a role in this disappointing Knicks season.

To the former coach, it’s fair to criticize Thibodeau for the lack of production from Randle and others.

“If you’re going to get credit for (Quentin) Grimes and RJ Barrett, their ascension, then you certainly have to be held accountable for when players don’t play well,” the coach said. “I think overall he does a fantastic job of getting the most out of players. But this year, Randle has both played poorly and acted poorly. While it’s not under your direct control as a coach, you do have to take accountability for that.

“I think that’s a legit thing: Why has this guy regressed and how can you get him to act better and play better?”

WHAT ABOUT THE FRONT OFFICE?

How do you judge the Rose era so far? They’ve drafted mostly well (Quentin Grimes, Immanuel Quickley, Miles McBride). Free agency is more of a mixed bag. The Knicks’ signings in 2021 certainly haven’t yielded the desired results. The decision to extend Randle, at the moment, deserves scrutiny. Barrett is playing well, but he was drafted by a past regime.

For various reasons, this offseason is pivotal for Rose and his group.

They inherited a relatively clean salary cap in 2020; in 2022, they eschewed cap flexibility for stability.

The plan didn’t work out the way the Knicks hoped. So it will be incumbent on the front office to put together a roster that takes a significant step forward in 2022-23. (If the Knicks regress again in 2022-23, it won’t sit well with James Dolan – nor should it.)

So what happens from here?

The Knicks don’t have any cap space, so the best route to upgrade the roster is via trade. New York has all of its first-round draft picks moving forward and young players like Quickley and Barrett, who are valued by opposing teams.

What stars will be available? That’s always hard to say at this point in the calendar.

Several teams believe Utah has a reason to be concerned about the future of Donovan Mitchell. Is that just wishful thinking from those teams? Mitchell is under contract for four more seasons and would have to demand a trade out of Utah. Even if Mitchell asks for a trade to a specific destination like New York, the Jazz are not obligated to honor that request. Utah would, presumably, trade Mitchell to the team that offers the best package in return.

Teams are keeping an eye around several high-end players around the league for potential trades, including Mitchell, Bradley Beal, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Are the Knicks going to pursue one of those players this offseason? That remains to be seen. But it’s worth noting that the inner circle for one of the players on a tradable contract subtly asked New York about a possible trade ahead of the deadline. The Knicks didn’t trade the player, presumably because the player’s trade value would be higher in the coming offseason.

Rose has never said that his goal is to bring a star to New York. But when the Knicks hired Rose and subsequently added VP William Wesley, the perception around the league was that the two execs were brought in to land top talent.

The hiring was the latest in a recent trend of top agents taking jobs to run NBA organizations.

“They’ve been around basketball but they haven’t been in basketball,” the former coach says. “Being an agent and a consultant is a far different experience than running a team and evaluating players and coaches."

Wesley was a consultant with CAA and is well-known as a power broker in basketball circles (As the New York Post noted, the specifics of Wesley's biography are not mentioned in the Knicks' media guide). Rose represented some of the top players in the NBA as a CAA player agent. They've added high-priced acquisitions to the front office and coaching staff, but they haven’t brought star power to New York to date. Given the trajectory of the past two seasons (exceeding expectations last year, taking a step back this year), Rose, Wesley & Co. will be under increased scrutiny next season, particularly if the club struggles. 

But Wesley and Rose’s past resumes, the Knicks’ underwhelming results in 2021-22, Randle’s regression – none of it will matter at all if this front office can build a sustained winner.

One key to doing just that? Being in lockstep with your coaching staff. As SNY reported in February, there have been signs that Thibodeau and the front office haven’t been on the same page: Wesley critiquing Thibodeau to Dolan is one; Thibodeau’s usage of Cam Reddish is another.

“Usually, when you trade for a player like Reddish, he’s playing regularly,” an opposing exec said. “That was strange to me.”

Internally, there was frustration among the front office of Thibodeau’s use of Reddish. Other teams believed Kevin Knox’s value was diminished when he was getting DNPs earlier this season in games decided by a large margin. Traditionally, that’s a time when you’d see players at the end of the bench getting minutes — particularly if a team is looking to trade that player. New York ended up moving Knox and a 2021 first-round pick for Reddish. Reddish was mostly out of the Knick rotation until injuries opened an opportunity for him. Reddish’s initial usage led to the aforementioned frustration between the front office and coaching staff.

This was several weeks ago, and maybe Rose, Thibodeau and the other concerned parties have worked things out and are in lockstep.

One thing worth noting? Dolan had been communicating directly with Thibodeau more regularly post-All-Star break, sources say.

What that means for Thibodeau’s future is uncertain, but it can’t hurt. The best thing moving forward, according to the coach, is for New York to allow the entire group to succeed or fail together.

“I just don’t want to see them do the Knicks thing again.”