LaMelo Ball has shut it down in Australia with a foot injury, but still should be a top-three pick in the upcoming draft.
According to a source, the Knicks never got a chance to see the 6-foot-7 forward play live Down Under. Brass had plotted a trip for this month.
In Ball’s last two games in the Australian National Basketball League in late November, he struck for consecutive triple-doubles. Par for the course.
Maybe it won’t matter. There’s no guarantee president Steve Mills or general manager Scott Perry will make the Knicks’ lottery selection in June. Mills and Perry have assembled six first-round picks in the next four drafts.
The more the duo hide from the media, the shakier the ground on which they are perched appears. Perhaps Mills and Perry are at a loss on how to shape the narrative of a spiraling season just past the midpoint.
When the Giants fired coach Pat Shurmur, team brass spoke to the media. When the Mets fired manager Carlos Beltran, team brass spoke to the media.
Mills and Perry have remained mum since firing David Fizdale on Dec. 6 after he opened the season with a 4-18 record. The pair did, however, make him run a final practice and speak for 10 minutes to the media about an upcoming game versus Indiana, which he was not going to coach.
Interim coach Mike Miller was at the 20-game mark as the Knicks prepared for Saturday’s match at Garden versus the 76ers, but Mills and Perry haven’t uttered a single word publicly about him. Their former G-League coach and small-college lifer had made for a nice little story after a decent 6-6 start.
Miller is now 7-13, with James Dolan’s motley group having lost six of their past seven. Miller has just one victory over a club that currently sits with a .500 or better record (Miami).
According to sources, Knicks brass was enthused by “the structure’’ Miller brought to the defense, but that feel-good vibe may be eroding.
On the 0-4 Western trip, the Knicks allowed 124 points per outing. On Thursday, Suns youngsters Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton, along with veteran Ricky Rubio, did whatever they pleased on the Garden floor in an embarrassing 121-98 cakewalk. It was a reminder Mills’ new roster is nothing better than expansion-like — as the Knicks’ 11-31 record suggests.
The Knicks’ back-to-back blowout losses this week to the Bucks and Suns are almost as wretched as the consecutive contests that preceded Fizdale’s firing. Remember the 44-point blowout at Milwaukee, when the Bucks ran up the score in the fourth quarter, followed by losing to the powerhouse Nuggets by 37? Mills deduced Fizdale had lost the team.
With the Knicks down 34 points midway through the third quarter Tuesday in Milwaukee, Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer mercifully pulled Giannis Antetokounmpo, who had already racked up 37 points in 21 minutes.
Miller was a breath of fresh air at the outset with his detail-oriented approach to X’s and O’s (not Fizdale’s strong suit). Miller’s mastery comes specifically on defense, along with a relentless view to practicing on almost every off-day. But Miller’s Knicks looked so disinterested against the Suns, they could’ve used a rah-rah speech from Fizdale.
Marcus Morris, their top revelation this season, who had talked up how he wants to be here long-term, sounded fed up after the blowout loss to the Suns. Perhaps he is rethinking things. The Sixers invaded the Garden Saturday, and that’s his hometown team, which has some interest.
“[Forget] that,” Morris said, when asked if the Knicks are still jelling with all the new faces. “The time is now. At some point, we as a team, we have to pull together. We’ve been around each other for a long time. Everybody knows each other’s game. It doesn’t have [anything to do] with new faces.”
There may be some new faces soon. The Knicks are still hopeful of making deals — both small and large — before the Feb. 6 deadline. With a weak 2020 free-agent class, the Knicks, The Post has reported, are on the prowl for a star to become disgruntled and be made available.
Wizards shooting guard Bradley Beal has made comments in Washington this week complaining about the culture. The Knicks’ bigger hope is Karl-Anthony Towns, who plays in the basketball wasteland of Minnesota and grew up in New Jersey with a Knicks poster on his wall.
The season’s first half, capped by RJ Barrett going down indefinitely with a sprained ankle, couldn’t have gone much worse. Just two days before, Barrett had talked about his history of never getting injured. Barrett caught the Knicks’ jinx.
The impressive 2018-19 rookie trio has not provided a ton of hope. Kevin Knox has regressed. Allonzo Trier’s sophomore jinx is of epic proportions — and he has become a garbage-time staple. Mitchell Robinson shows flashes, but teams have recently adjusted to his alley-oop intents. Without a mid-range or post game or a 3-point shot, that’s a concerning development.
Dennis Smith Jr.? An unmitigated disaster of a season is unfolding. When healthy, his play was suspect on both ends, and he has been out since before Christmas with a bizarre oblique injury, the kind that cost Yankees star Aaron Judge two months.
No wonder Mills and Perry are speechless.
For more on the Knicks, listen to the latest episode of the “Big Apple Buckets” podcast:
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January 19, 2020 at 05:17AM
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Knicks front office's hiding act is looking worse by the day - New York Post
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