Leon's Handiwork
With the vibes sky high, what better time to assess Leon's legacy after five and a half years.
Good morning! The Knicks continue their homestand tonight against the reeling Memphis Grizzlies, who have lost five of six and are without several rotation players. For New York, Mitchell Robinson is questionable because of workload management.
Leon’s Handiwork
Today’s question comes to us from Future Considerations, who asks:
This game and your newsletter brought a thought to my mind. Has there ever been a former agent turned GM that has taken a more methodical and piece by piece approach to a successful rebuild in any sport? Life is good in Knickland. Let’s soak it in and enjoy this ride.
Love the question FC, although I’m not about to test my knowledge about great team-building jobs in baseball, football and Lord knows hockey. Fans of those sports, feel free to reply in the comments.
Regarding Leon and the National Basketball Association though, while I can’t compare him to every former agent-turned-executive, I do know that for as long as he stays in this job, he will inevitably be compared to the two former agents who reached the NBA mountaintop, Bob Myers and Rob Pelinka.
Myers had the luxury of inheriting the greatest shooting backcourt ever before either Steph or Klay entered their primes, but his fingerprints are all over the Warriors’ dynasty. From drafting Draymond Green (albeit after passing on him five picks earlier) to trading for Andre Iguodala to firing Mark Jackson and hiring Steve Kerr, he knew exactly how to get the most out of his generational, league-altering superstar. Even if he gets no credit for the cap spike that made the Kevin Durant acquisition possible, his record is close to spotless1. He even managed to turn lemons into lemonade, getting D’Angelo Russell when KD left and later flipping him into Andrew Wiggins.
As for Pelinka, I’d encourage everyone who is interested to pick up Yaron Weitzman’s latest book about the LeBron Lakers, which paints a detailed and not altogether flattering portrait of LA’s GM. I flat out asked Yaron on a recent episode of NBA Takedown whether he thought Pelinka was good at his job, and while he tried his best to give both sides of the argument, it was tough not to read between the lines on an executive whose foibles (hi, Russ) have been well documented.
But like Myers, Pelinka has something Leon Rose does not, even if (also like Myers) he had an all-time great player essentially fall into his lap. In fairness, no matter what Leon does on the job, his greatest move will always be signing his godson away from the Dallas Mavericks. Convincing Jalen to come to New York may have taken a tad more savvy than whatever Pelinka had to do to facilitate the arrival of LeBron (or, for that matter, Anthony Davis), but probably not much.
If the question is specifically about his methodical approach, Leon certainly has the advantage over Pelinka and maybe even Myers as well. Just look at the top 10 players in New York’s rotation and the series of moves it took to get all of them:
