NEW YORK _ Knicks fans, I can practically hear the fatigue and trepidation in your tweets.
What the heck did the team do now? Instead of prying pedigreed team-builder Masai Ujiri out of Toronto, the Knicks reportedly are on the verge of handing the keys to the castle over to a sports agent with zero experience running a team.
Believe me, I understand your concern. Yet as much as I also wanted an executive with a proven track record to come to the Knicks, I have to say that the hiring of Leon Rose should solve the team's second-biggest problem.
Rose, a super-agent with CAA, has the juice and connections to make the Knicks cool again.
We all know that the Knicks' biggest problem is that they don't have enough talent. That has to be fixed with a combination of savvy draft picks, smart trades and elite free-agent signings. And that's where the cool factor comes in.
The Knicks cleared enough cap space to sign two free agents this past summer _ and no one wanted to come.
It was as if they had built a beautiful mansion on top of a toxic dump. No matter how attractive they tried to make it look from the outside, players across the league weren't buying something on that foundation.
Not after years of dysfunction. Not after watching how one of the team's most beloved former players, Charles Oakley, was tossed out of Madison Square Garden. Not after watching the way Carmelo Anthony was handled at the end of his time here.
"It's like the cool thing right now is not the Knicks," Kevin Durant said in October, a few months after he and Kyrie Irving picked the Nets over the Knicks.
Rose reportedly will be bringing William "World Wide Wes" Wesley with him to the Knicks. The two make quite a powerful, well-connected pair.
Rose and CAA represent Karl-Anthony Towns, Chris Paul, Joel Embiid, Devin Booker, Anthony, LaMelo Ball and Kyle Kuzma. He also has represented LeBron James.
Wesley has long been close to the University of Kentucky basketball program, which includes Towns and Booker as well as coach John Calipari.
By hiring a former agent to head their latest rebuild, the Knicks are heading down the road the Lakers and Warriors recently forged. The Lakers hired Rob Pelinka, who was the CEO of the Landmark Sports Agency, as their GM in 2017. Former Wasserman Media Group agent Bob Myers joined Golden State in 2011 and worked his way up to president.
Both hires seem to have worked out pretty well, though the Knicks are in a unique market and have some unique problems.
The Knicks, who fired David Fizdale as coach 22 games into the season, will be looking for a replacement for interim coach Mike Miller. General manager Scott Perry also is likely to be gone by the end of the season, if not sooner.
Rose may be able to attract the big free agents, but he needs to hire a savvy and experienced talent evaluator to work underneath him. He also needs to hire someone who can develop young talent, stoke the ego of superstars and handle the media, which isn't always the easiest combination to find.
Rose is close to Calipari, Tom Thibodeau, Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy. Some on that list would work out better than others. All, however, have been around the league for a long time and are good judges of talent. And the Knicks are going to need that.
Yes, it is mind-numbing to watch the Knicks blow up their team yet again after another losing season.
There always seems to be a new savior waiting in the wings, a new reason to be hopeful that things might work out this time.
Now it appears to be Rose's turn to start cranking that hope machine. If he can add a few big names to help him turn that crank, at least things might get interesting.
