A Sad History of Players Knicks Fans Were Sold On | The Knicks Wall

8 min readAug 25, 2023

Knicks fans have endured some hard times. Nothing marks their resilience more than their historic ability to talk themselves into scrubs.

Times are good right now. In fact, things could not be much better. It is almost September, and the New York Knicks are the furthest thing from a dumpster fire. The full roster is under contract, including the core of a team that made it to the second round of the playoffs last season, a feat the team had not achieved in ten years. And unlike 2013, which even at the time felt like a castle made of sand, these Knicks are built to last.

Now, you have Bobby Marks choosing the Knicks to win the East, Joel Embiid trade rumors intensifying, at least 25 nationally televised games next season, and most importantly, no jokes.

Weird, I know, but the Knicks are no longer the punch line.

It all starts with Jalen Brunson, but do not forget Julius Randle and his two All-NBA and All-Star selections in the past three seasons. Do not forget RJ Barrett, who finished his playoff run averaging 21.3 points per game after a slow start. And do not forget Mitchell Robinson who made mincemeat of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ frontline, or Quentin Grimes and Immanuel Quickley, two enticing young guards looking to bounce back from disappointing postseasons. Forget nothing.

Because if you do forget, you cannot appreciate how far the team has come.

In years past, the usual summer exercise was to hold out hope for a pie-in-the-sky roster move, which usually pivoted into hope in whatever bargain signing or misguided draft pick the front office made. It was one thing to tank as the team did in the lead-up to the summer of 2010; at least the end goal was the king himself, LeBron James.

The rebuild in the immediate years after the Carmelo Anthony era was far worse. It was basketball purgatory, a place no team wants to be, and a place the Knicks will thankfully not have to live anymore.

Don’t think it was ever that bad? Let’s take a stroll back down memory lane… and try not to cover your eyes.

Emmanuel Mudiay

“We’re going to get you right.” The famous words that preceded a tragedy.

The David Fizdale exercise was a scamming masterclass. Fizdale took the job and came in talking a very big game, focused on positionless basketball. To be clear, Mudiay arrived slightly before Fizdale, but he was most certainly one of Fizdale’s guys.

One of the many former Scott Perry draft picks to pass through the Knick locker room, Mudiay felt like the one with true untapped potential. Things never quite panned out for “Mudy” in Denver. He started 107 games for the Nuggets, including 66 as a rookie, yet never managed to secure a long-term hold on the starting job. His problem began, though didn’t end, with a suspect jump shot that did not get much better in New York.

Mudiay started 42 games in his first (and last) full season as a Knick and averaged a career-high 14.8 points per game. The Knicks would not bring Mudiay back, smartly opting to see if Dennis Smith Jr., a player with similar defects but higher upside, was the better play.

After a year in Utah and a cup of coffee in Sacramento, Mudiay found himself out of the league. Most recently, he played in Puerto Rico for the Santurce Cangrejeros.

Allonzo Trier

Who could forget Iso Zo?

The appeal with Trier was straightforward. He was a certified bucket-getter. Trier’s entire aesthetic was being a hooper’s hooper. The Knicks signed Trier immediately after the 2018 draft, and once again Fizdale thought he had lightning in a bottle.

To be fair to Fizdale, the pieces were there for Trier to become a contributor. A combo guard who did not need help finding his shot was a good base. If Trier was able to hone those skills while developing as a passer and defender, the Knicks could have left 2018 with three young players to build around.

Trier’s memorable preseason game against the Brooklyn Nets , in which he scored 25 points, extended that hope to the fans. Trier parlayed that performance into a full season that saw him show out for a few offensive explosions as a rookie. At the time, it felt like Trier would hang around, but in hindsight, he turned out to be another way to pass the time in another lost season.

The main problem with Trier is he did not do much else but hunt for his shot. He did not play defense, he most definitely did not seem to enjoy passing, and he never progressed much in either category. It shouldn’t have been surprising that a guy nicknamed “Iso Zo” was not a born playmaker for others, but still, it was this lack of development that expedited Trier’s exit out of New York and very quickly out of the league.

Trier was eventually waived in 2020, and last played for the Iowa Wolves in the G-League. He is currently a free agent.

Kevin Knox

The best way to describe Kevin Knox in New York is a classic Logan Roy line: “You’re not a killer.”

Knox fooled fans into thinking they had one during his rookie season Summer League. Had the Knicks had access to a fortune-teller, they could have performed highway robbery selling high on Knox after his impressive debut in Vegas, it was that buzzworthy at the time.

The Summer League performance created unrealistic and hyperbolic expectations for Knox. Las Vegas was the final time we ever confused Knox as the second coming of Paul George.

Once the real games started, Knox did have his moments — dunking on Ben Simmons being the peak — but his rookie season will largely be remembered as one of the worst shooting seasons for a rookie logging major minutes: 37.0% from the field and 34.3% from three.

The bigger problem, however, was that Fizdale never really knew what he wanted to do with Knox. If the rumors are true, Fizdale endorsed Knox simply because he beat Miles Bridges in one-on-one workouts. If that did not piss you off enough, take into account that Mikal Bridges and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander were never heavily considered, despite both being readily available.

The end result was throwing Knox into the fire with no real plan. Fizdale took a Pokémon trainer approach to developing Knox rather than a basketball coach approach. The hope was at some point all those reps would click, Knox would fill out, and the Knicks would have a versatile forward to build around.

It sucks that Knox was never able to find his way because by all accounts he was well-liked, he just never had that fire in him that you see with Julius Randle, RJ Barrett, or Jalen Brunson. The Knicks eventually cut bait with Knox in 2022, flipping him to the Atlanta Hawks for Cam Reddish.

Knox would sign a deal with the Detroit Pistons before being traded to the Portland Trail Blazers. He is currently a free agent.

Noah Vonleh

The Giannis stopper ! Of all the people on this list, Noah Vonleh easily produced the most. There was a moment in time when Vonleh looked like the thrown-away lottery ticket that still had value.

Vonleh was another of the many Scott Perry rehab projects, a former lottery pick turned vagabond who had made previous stops in Charlotte, Portland, and Chicago before signing with the Knicks in 2018. He entered the starting lineup on Thanksgiving and was soon arguably the team’s most productive player.

He led the Knicks in rebounds in his lone season and averaged a career-high 8.4 points per game. He also developed a semi-interesting grab-and-go game that had not been seen previously (or since, for that matter) If the mere fact that a guy averaging less than 10 points per game was arguably the team’s most vital player doesn’t make you depressed, I don’t know what will.

But that is who Vonleh was: there was little flash to his game, yet he still managed to find ways to contribute. In a different world, with a better-built team, Vonleh could actually have become an end-of-rotation big.

The Knicks would win a whopping 17 games in Vonleh’s sole season in New York, helping land the pick that became RJ Barrett. As for Vonleh, he would bounce around the league some more, making stops in Denver, Minnesota, Brooklyn, and Boston, until he finally did what most NBA players who can’t find a stable home do: he learned Chinese. He currently plays for the Shanghai Sharks.

Frank Ntilikina

This one hurts. Frank Ntilikina started off on the wrong foot with a faction of Knicks fans merely because Phil Jackson opted for the once-monikered French Prince for his theoretical fit in Jackson’s triangle offense over Donovan Mitchell, one of the top guards in the league today.

The pick came at a time when the Knicks desperately needed to get excited about. Carmelo Anthony was on his way out and Jackson was finally going to build the team out in his triangular vision… only Jackson would leave six days after drafting Ntilikina.

Triangle fit aside, when Ntilikina was drafted, the hope was he would be a bigger Gary Payton. Done laughing? Good, because Ntilikina never lived up to any fantasy fans could have dreamed up. Part of this was due to the lack of role with the team through four head coaches. The other part was: Ntilikina could not hit the ocean from the sand.

Ntilikina’s best scoring game of his career was 20 points against the Washington Wizards right as COVID was hitting the country and basketball was about to be shut down for months. Did COVID kill Ntilikina’s final chance in New York? Possibly, but not really. Ntilikina’s appeal was never as a scorer, but rather as a low-maintenance primary defender.

Defense was and will remain Ntilikina’s meal ticket. He has solid instincts and long arms, which blended well to make for a plus defender.

this is the frank ntilikina dream sequence pic.twitter.com/AsOQ5SrR6b
- Mike Cortez 🇵🇷 (@CortezEra) March 19, 2021

It’s a shame the team did not force Ntilikina to stay in the corner and launch threes on offense while chasing around the team’s best player. His role felt clear to see for anyone other than the Knick coaching staff.

In the end, Ntilikina’s accomplishments in New York include hilarious facial expressions, becoming a close friend to RJ Barrett, and trying (but failing) to put Kristaps Porzingis on a poster.

Unlike the other names on this list, Ntilikina still has a job in the NBA. He joined Luka Dončić in Dallas for two seasons and recently signed with the Charlotte Hornets.

Clearly, the Knicks have come a long way under Leon Rose and company. There are no more lottery ticket rehabs, reaches in the draft, or head coaches overpromising. There is a standard in New York now, and that standard gets higher each passing season. So, when the Knicks experience some tough times, just remember, things can get dark quickly.

Originally published at https://theknickswall.com on August 25, 2023.