SAD NEWS: Precious Achiuwa has been suspended from the team of New York Knicks today due to……..

The most revealing thing a New York Knicks executive has said in the past half decade—an admittedly low bar, since Knicks executives seldom speak publicly—came in the summer of 2020, when Steve Stoute, a branding expert hired to buff up the team’s image, explained how the Knicks’ new leadership would, at long last, attract a marquee star.

“The three of us? I think we’re the best sort of team as it relates to being able to speak to a free agent,” Stoute said during an interview with The Breakfast Club, a popular New York radio show.

The “three of us” he was referring to were new team president Leon Rose, a former NBA superagent; Rose’s associate William “World Wide Wes” Wesley, a renowned power broker in league circles; and Stoute himself, a prominent record executive. The Knicks, Stoute asserted, had “never had this level … of (front office) talent that can go out and pitch a free agent or convince a player why New York is great.”

The remarks were off the cuff, unsanctioned, perhaps even unwise—but unsurprising to anyone studying the Knicks during James Dolan’s rocky reign as owner. For 20 years, this had been the franchise’s consistent MO: acquire a marquee name, whatever the cost. The strategy was clear, too: hire leaders with personal relationships with stars (Isiah Thomas) or close ties to past stars (Phil Jackson) or cozy relationships with the stars’ agencies (Steve Mills)—even if some had zero experience building a team.

Over and over, it seemed, Dolan had chosen leaders he believed could win the arms race on relationships and reputation alone.

Rose—who built one of the most successful player agencies from the ground up, then led Creative Artists Agency’s basketball division after it acquired his practice—fit the mold. Here was an executive who had represented some of the biggest stars in the game, from Allen Iverson to LeBron James, and whose CAA group repped some of today’s brightest young talent, including Devin Booker, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Donovan Mitchell.