This Day in Knicks History: Leon Rose is named Team President

The Knicks formally introduced Leon Rose as team president exactly four years ago with none of the fanfare that accompanied other recent front-office changes within the organization, signaling the start of an era that has seen New York learn from past mistakes.

Though we already knew at the time that Rose was nothing but guaranteed to take over the presidential position, the team made things official on Monday, Mar. 2, 2020, with a relatively standard press release with a minimal format that has been in use for years on end up to this day.

The ordinary way in which the news was announced made it an exceptional move by the Knicks, which prior to this sort of announcement had held outlandish press conferences and made major proclamations about how this or that time they’re going to build a winner.

That never worked for the Knicks. This new approach to doing business, while it has not yielded a decades-chased title, has fairly looked great and the best is possible yet to come from Rose’s hiring and appointment.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed that day, but a few months after it became official the details emerged. Marc Stein, then of the The New York Times, shared them (h/t NBC Sports).

“Rose’s annual salary, I’m told, is in the $8 million range,” he wrote in his newsletter on Nov. 2020.

What we knew on Mar. 2, however, is that the Knicks were not going to hold a press conference to announce the hiring (h/t Adrian Wojnarowski) and that Rose said then that he was going to take a patient approach, with no major decisions coming imminently.

Although Rose kept relatively quiet and didn’t show his hand, season ticket holders were treated to a note from the new team president that contained a few more details of how he intended to run the show sent via email.

In the note, which the Knicks eventually posted on their official PR Twitter account, Rose boasted about his “more than 25 years” working in and around the NBA, and detailed that for the rest of this season. He planned to “work tirelessly behind the scenes while evaluating every aspect of the organization.”

Notably, Rose thanked Mike Miller for his “continued leadership and professionalism during this period.” He also gave a hat tip to fallen predecessor Steve Mills and current co-worker Scott Perry by touting that the Knicks have “young talent, significant future assets (including seven first round picks over the next four years) and an ample amount of financial flexibility in the coming years.”

In a very interesting part of his writeup, Rose wrote, “Nothing about this is easy, or quick, so I ask for your continued patience,” which has certainly proved to be true during the past four years. “What I promise you in return is that I will be honest and forthright. We will develop a plan that makes sense, both to jumpstart our short-term growth and ensure our long-term success,” he added.

It all sounded pretty nice, but we here at P&T HQ were still hesitant about it, as that sounded as nice as zip-lining in the Congo—only before you know it, mosquitoes are sucking your blood, monkeys are stealing your food, and your beloved one is off somewhere unknown while you’re left wondering why you even decided to vacation abroad, especially as the coronavirus spreads like melted butter on your morning toast.

Now, if you have followed Posting & Toasting for a few years (thanks!), you know all of the above is just a bunch of copy-pasted letters slightly edited for the purposes of cooking a present-day post on the blog (slow news Saturday, yes).

Kudos to BennyBuckets71 for penning the original article in such detail as he did, dropping more than 1,200 words while at it. So great the OG post was, that our writer even touched on many different stories linked to Rose’s hiring and what could come next regarding New York Knicks basketball.

Let me keep copy-paste-editing the original words because that’s what I am paid for.

There are rumors that Rose could bring back Carmelo Anthony next season

“This is the story that will never go away until Melo has retired, and even then it wouldn’t be shocking to see people say he should come back in order to be a veteran presence on the Knicks,” was the original intro to this section.

We now know it has not happened, but we also have read some commenters dropping short messages earlier this season calling for Rose to sign Melo off the street if only to give him the farewell he deserved and never got. Crazy crystal-ball stuff, wasn’t it?

Did you know that Rose is chummy with Tom Thiboeau?

“Thibs has been mentioned as a potential coaching candidate since the very second Mills was fired reassigned, alongside fellow former NBA coaches like Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson, among others,” was the original intro.

Nailed it.

Frank Isola of The Athletic shared some intel and he believed four years ago that Thibs, in fact, would end up taking over the head coach position. Bullseye!

“Rumors are rumors, so it’s certainly possible that the Thibs noise eventually dies down, but it seems likely that the Knicks are going to try and nab someone who has experience, as opposed to keeping Miller or hiring another neophyte,” wrote our staffer.

The writer also mentioned Patrick Ewing, who was then coaching the Georgetown Hoyas and is now sitting at home after getting fired nearly exactly a year ago, on March 9, 2023, by the Big East college.

Will Ewing get hired once Thibs gets fired? Who knows! “Maybe Rose wants somebody with more NBA head coaching experience, but it would really be lovely to one day see Ewing roam the sidelines at Madison Square Garden as coach of his former team,” BennyBuckets71 wrote.

Frank Ntilikina says Rose can be trusted

“I know Leon—very professional in what he does. He’s a good guy. We can trust him, I think,” Frank Ntilikina said of Rose, according to Peter Botte of the New York Post. “We all want what’s the best for the team. So we all are moving in the same direction.”

This fostered the question of whether or not those comments meant that Ntilikina still had a chance to be on the roster for the 2021 season. “Maybe,” wrote our writer. “To be frank, we don’t know anything at the moment. But with another lost season winding down, it’s okay to be cautiously optimistic that this could be the time the Knicks do things right.”

Did that mean the Knicks should have retained Frank, or let him leave? You be the judge!