Luck is a big part of it but of the factors we can control, I'd like to see us work on these:
Culture: I think most of us probably had roots in the older knicks teams that were gritty and played with heart. Despite never winning a title, we still admire those teams because they gave it everything , particularly on D and they won and lost as a team. I would say for me that is still the resilient culture we want to instill , organization-wide, during this rebuild and Perry and Fizdale seem to be good building blocks here and our core players seem to have this qualities in them. During this lead up to the draft, even as they dissect length and up-side, I hope they will pay considerable attention to the make up of the prospects they are considering. Even if 10 years from now, if this rebuild ends up the same way, it would still be worth it for me if we get teams like that again.
Adaptive/versatile: I agree that there is no single blueprint. You need a vision with multiple strategies and have the ability and guts to change when you need to. That also goes all the way back to the draft and scouting and right up the court where we have to make real-time decisions and need to be able to play iso, small ball, big ball whatever the situation may be. This new regime has not really been tested in this area and that honeymoon is about to end. I'd like to see them approach the draft with open minds and not worry about mock drafts , whether its a need pick or bpa , the media and even us fans. They are paid to make tough decisions. If Fiz gets to work and eventually concludes that he can't get Mudiay "right" or that frank can't play PG, then it's on to the next guy or the next play, no excuses, no hard feelings, no second guessing.