Author: Brian Cronin

From Steve Popper:

A day after adding Walt Perrin to serve as assistant general manager with a focus on college personnel, Knicks president Leon Rose will bring on former Nets assistant general manager Frank Zanin to pair with Perrin.

According to a league source, Zanin is finalizing a deal to serve as the Knicks assistant general manager/pro personnel. He joins Perrin and Brock Aller, who signed on earlier this month to serve as chief strategist, handling the salary cap

Zanin most recently served as a scout for the Thunder, a role he held the last four years. Prior to that, he served a variety of roles for the Nets, joining Billy King, who he had worked for with the 76ers, as a pro personnel scout and then earning promotions to director of player procurement and then assistant general manager.

He began his NBA career with the 76ers, serving as a scout for nine years in the city where he grew up – and played high school basketball where he developed a relationship with Kobe Bryant, who played for a rival school. Zanin got an endorsement for the Nets’ full-time GM job four years ago from Bryant, who tweeted, “Hope to see you in the GM seat for the @BrooklynNets @F1E2Z you have a great basketball mind and it’s time you get your shot #gogetit.”

Would I prefer the Knicks to be hiring some of the hot executives out there? Of course, but eh, at least so far Rose has been bringing in non-offensive guys, as well. It’s not like he’s bringing on Stephon Marbury as Assistant GM. These guys are all probably competent enough.

I also suspect that Rose will go for a big name next season,anyways, and these guys could just as easily serve that new big name.

Anyhow, just normal hires is a good day for the Knicks these days.

EDITED TO ADD: Stefan Bondy notes that Craig Robinson, Gerald Madkins and Harold Ellis will not be retained. Robinson was clearly way too close to Mills to stick around and I barely recall the other two guys, sadly.

We needed a new thread and I just had to share one of the most perfect examples of a New York newspaper “news” story that I’ve seen in quite some time.

From Marc Berman:

There is so much talk about Giannis (Antetokounmpo) being a free agent in ’21 and his being available to the Knicks. Do you think he’d really be interested in the Knicks given that he hates the team after the fiasco with his brother? — Sam V

The season’s potential cancellation will most hurt Milwaukee, which had a league-best 53-12 unit that many experts felt had the momentum to win the championship. Antetokounmpo seems to want to stay in Milwaukee when he becomes a 2021 free agent, but only if the Bucks stand as a title contender. Sources indicate the pandemic has changed things so drastically, it’s hard to pinpoint Antetokounmpo’s future plans.

Who knows what could happen with next season’s rosters — potentially Antetokounmpo’s last season in Brew City.

The Knicks’ lure is the bigger stage but they probably won’t be a winner in 2020-21. And we know Antetokounmpo was disappointed with the franchise when it didn’t give his brother, Thanasis, a 2013 second-round pick, a chance. Thanasis, who played just two games with the Knicks, is now with the Bucks.

Before the Knicks faced Milwaukee in London in 2015, Giannis told The Post, “I thought he [would] get called up before the game. I’m a little disappointed he’s not going to play tomorrow against me.”

Then came a weird remark in a documentary last season from one of Giannis’ agents, Giorgos Panou, who stated the Knicks were the lone team not to send a scout to Greece to watch Giannis play. The Knicks denied the charge.

Alex Antetokounmpo, the youngest brother, has decided to skip college to play in Europe. The Knicks may have another chance to make good with Giannis in the 2021 draft.

I am sure Giannis is not coming here, either, but the idea that his mediocre brother not getting to play on the Knicks five years ago has any impact either way is laughable. For it to get a HEADLINE is just New York sports media at its finest.

For good measure, Berman later suggests that Cole Anthony could be a good draft pick if the Knicks miss out on Ball. Oh, Berman, never change. Wait, I didn’t mean that. I meant please change!

It sure sounds like we’re actually going to see a playoffs, but the crazier thing will be what the NBA looks like next season, money-wise. We’re probably looking at a CBA where everyone agrees to pro-rate salaries next season, with player taking sizable pay cuts.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver prepared players for a potentially grim landscape amid the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting there are no guarantees when fans could fully return to NBA arenas next season.

Silver said that 40% of the league’s revenue comes from money built around game nights in arenas.

“This could turn out to be the single greatest challenge of all our lives,” Silver told the players.

ESPN acquired an audio replay of the National Basketball Players Association call, which included executive director Michele Roberts, NBPA president Chris Paul and several players asking questions of the commissioner in an hour-long session.

The tone was respectful, but Silver was asked some hard questions about safety issues, return-to-play ideas, how future seasons would be impacted and the financial realities of future salary caps and basketball-related income. Silver said no decision on returning to play this season needs to be made in May, nor immediately into the start of June.

Silver said returning to play this season at one or two potential sites — including Orlando and Las Vegas — made the most sense, and that no decision on the league season needed to be made before June.

“There’s no point in adding risk for flying all of you city to city if there’s not going to be fans,” Silver said. “We think it would be safer to be in a single location, or two locations, to start.”

Silver allowed that there would need to be some restrictions in place at a single or two-site scenario, but he told players: “The goal isn’t to have you go to a market for two months to sit in hotel room.”

Silver expressed a desire that the NBA complete its season with a traditional playoff structure that includes seven-game series in each round of the playoffs, but he left open the possibility of play-in tournaments to accommodate more teams in a shortened season resumption. Silver also told players that the start of next season could be pushed until December, regardless of whether this season was completed or not.

Through it all, Silver reminded players that these were issues that needed to be collectively bargained with the NBPA. Among those issues, he said, included how future basketball-related income and salary caps would be impacted with massive decreases in revenue.

He flatly told players about the current Collective Bargaining Agreement: “The CBA was not built for extended pandemics.”

Jonathan Macri is a talented writer, and he delivered his perfect Knicks 2020-21 Starting Five to SI.com, opening with Chris Paul (who he would suggest that the Knicks get for the Charlotte second rounder, Dennis Smith Jr. and Julius Randle and “several expiring contracts,” but would the Thunder really want the Knicks’ dredges just to get out from Year 2 of Paul’s deal? That’s why Ian Begley’s proposed deals involved the Knicks dumping all of their salaries and accepting Paul into their cap space and thus only trading the Thunder Bullock and a young player, because why would the Thunder want to pay the Knicks’ garbage the same amount they were paying Paul?). He then hopes for the Knicks to win the lottery and get Anthony Edwards.

Might he be a train wreck on a team that gives him too much responsibility and can’t properly reign in his less desirable tendencies while he learns the lay of the land? Oh yes. Yes yes yes.

But would that be nearly as much of a worry with Chris Paul as the floor general? Not in the slightest.

I see no reason why Danilo Gallinari wouldn’t want to extend his time playing with the best point guard of his generation, so let’s say he comes back home to play the four on a two-year deal (second year partially guaranteed for $5 million) with whatever is left of New York’s cap space.

And of course that leaves Mitch to man the five.

I don’t get why Gallinari is accepting a partially guaranteed second year in this scenario.

Anyhow, that’s something for people to talk about. Macri is a good writer, but I don’t think our ideas of “perfect starting fives” match well. That said, I do like it when people call Barrett a three. That recent Post article about RJ Hampton that suggested an all-RJ backcourt? Argh!

This is an interesting bit of news. There are now reports that the Thunder would be willing to get rid of Chris Paul pretty much just to dump his salary. They’re not so desperate that they would add draft picks, but it seems like they would be amenable to some reduced offerings.

Ian Begley suggested both Reggie Bullock/Frank Ntilikina and Reggie Bullock/Kevin Knox offers, noting, “One executive (not with the Thunder or Knicks) speculated that the Thunder would be open to the Ntilikina/Bullock package. Another exec pointed out that the trade market for Paul would be limited. So, if OKC wanted to get out of Paul’s contract, the Knicks wouldn’t be competing with many other teams. ”

Huh, if the Knicks aren’t giving up draft picks, I guess I wouldn’t mind either deal.

What do you folks think?

Berman with some “sort of kind of news”:

With Brock Aller soon to jump from the Cavaliers to become the Knicks’ vice president of strategy, general manager Scott Perry still will plow on in preparing for the NBA draft and is expected to run it — whenever the event takes place.

However, Perry’s long-term future as GM still is not guaranteed with his contract up June 30. The draft is scheduled for June 25 and could remain there if the NBA cancels its season in May.

Though Rose is considering keeping Perry, one NBA source told The Post, “The impression is Leon will do his due diligence.’’

An urgency to make a change, though, is lessened because of the new logistics amid the COVID-19 pandemic, especially with New York the nation’s epicenter.

“The shutdown may have helped everyone — at least temporarily,’’ one NBA source connected to the Knicks said.

Aller, who has been with the Cavaliers since 2014 as a capologist, will have a broader role with the Knicks. He is a financial maven coming in during a financial crisis. NBA teams face a revenue stream that has dried up completely.

NBA sources believe teams will tighten their belts on the size of front-office staffs. Sources have indicated Aller will look to reconfigure and even streamline the Knicks’ massive scouting/basketball operations department.

You simply cannot have Perry run your draft and then fire him. That’s just incompetent. And, of course, it’s what the Knicks already did a few years ago by letting Phil draft Ntilikina and then fire Phil right afterwards.

Based on the guys Rose was talking about hiring, Perry is as mediocre as any of them, so whatever, better Perry than Allan fuckin’ Houston, ya know? But it’d be nice if they could hire someone good, like the Bulls did. But in the absence of someone good, Perry would be fine.

And who knows who might become available in a year? There’s a certain Canadian GM whose contract is up at the end of next season, after all. Dare to dream, people! Dare to dream!