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Running an NBA team had never been part of his plan, but now, not long after news broke that he’d be doing exactly that, Leon Rose was on the phone with a friend, outlining how he intended to save one of the most embattled franchises in sports. It was February 2020, and after 25 years as an NBA agent, he knew the snake pit he was walking into. These, after all, were the New York Knicks. In the previous 20 years, they had endured three times as many losing seasons (15) as winning ones (five), dumped one franchise icon (Patrick Ewing) and fought with another (Charles Oakley), and regularly filled the tabloids with the kinds of scandals typically reserved for reality TV. Even Phil Jackson, just three years after being welcomed as a savior, had been run out of town a few years before. The Knicks were the first NBA riddle the legend was unable to solve.
All of which was why Rose was now telling Mike Dunlap, a longtime coach and one of his earliest clients, that he’d start with the simple stuff. He’d be patient with his roster. Build a relationship with team owner James Dolan. Come in asking questions and being ready to learn. And there was one more thing, Rose told Dunlap. Something he could bring to the table that no one before him could. “He thought Wes would be really important,” Dunlap said. Wes was William Wesley, a fellow South Jersey native known in sports as “World Wide Wes.” “Maybe the greatest connector I’ve met in my 50 years in the business,” said David Falk, Michael Jordan’s longtime agent. Whether you were a veteran general manager trying to defuse tension between a coach and a star, a rookie needing career advice, or a shoe executive wondering whether a kid was worth an investment, Wes was likely one of your first calls.
Rose understood this better than most. Over the previous four decades, he and Wes had built one of basketball’s most successful and unlikely partnerships. Neither had played college ball at a high level, let alone in the NBA, but together they’d climbed to the top of the sport. “They’re like Batman and Robin, except they’re always swapping those roles,” said Lynn Merritt, a longtime Nike executive.
Rose’s first dream was to become a coach. This concerned his father. “I said, ‘What you should do is go to law school first,’” Zev Rose, a commercial-real-estate lawyer, recounted. They compromised: Leon became an assistant at his old high school while enrolled at Temple’s law school. After graduating in 1986, he became a Camden County prosecutor and moonlighted as an assistant coach at Division III Rutgers–Camden. Wes, meanwhile, was carving out a path of his own. South Jersey had become a wellspring of athletic talent with future pros seemingly on every corner. College coaches flocked there; one of the first was Wade Houston, a Louisville assistant. “On my first trip to the gym, everyone told me that if I wanted to really learn about these kids, then I had to go see this guy at the shoe store by the mall,” Houston said. Wes was in the stockroom when he heard someone asking for William Wesley. His first instinct was to hide. “At least until he realized I wasn’t someone looking to hurt him,” Houston said. Houston was impressed by Wes’s eye for talent, but what he liked most was how much Wes seemed to care about the recruits: “He was almost like their protector.”
The first person to get a ring during the Knicks’ on-court ceremony, team president Leon Rose, opened his black box, revealing a shiny, sparkling ring, adorned with those diamonds and Knicks-blue sapphires, commemorating the team’s 2026 NBA championship. But as the boxes were handed to the coaching staff, well, the men didn’t open them. Because their rings weren’t inside. Seven league sources, all speaking on condition of anonymity so they could talk freely about a sensitive matter, said the Knicks assistant coaches did not get rings on banner night. Two of those sources told The Athletic that the assistants learned earlier Tuesday that they would not be getting their rings that evening, which came as no surprise because they had not yet been fitted for one and that boxes without their rings were a late addition to the ceremony.
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“We’re gonna face a lot of adversity and challenges throughout the course of the year,” coach Mike Brown said on Wednesday. “I addressed the group on that. I addressed individuals on that. There will probably be a time and place that I talk to [McBride] because he’s human, we’re all human, and we all want what’s best not just for ourselves but for our family as well as the organization, too. That’s a nice balancing act. But at the end of the day, he wants to be here, we want him to be here, and that’s something that I have faith in [president] Leon [Rose] and even Deuce’s representatives to figure that out.”
New York Basketball: Windhorst: “What KAT does will determine if Knicks core can stay together…He's got a $61 million option for (not this season) next season. Knicks have said ‘we don't wanna be in 2nd apron.’ If he picks up that option they're gonna be in the 2nd apron. So what they are gonna ultimately need him to do is not take that option and reduce that, and that is the basis for this conversation. That is the basis for all of it. Now, even though there may be a hard feeling or two between the front office and Karl in the coming months about this, ultimately I think this is gonna get done because Karl is represented by CAA, and CAA and the Knicks are like this. They're completely intertwined with each other. Leon Rose used to be his agent. And I believe ultimately that CAA and the Knicks will come to an agreement here. They represent Jalen Brunson. They represent a bunch of other players on the team. They'll get a deal done…. Wirh one caveat… If James Dolan messes this up. …Let Leon Rose and CAA do their business, and I think Karl-Anthony Towns will figure it out …Dolan has issued edict— no second apron come hell or high water…If that indeed remains the case and they proceed that way with Karl Towns, he will have the option to go someplace and get a max…obviously he's not being offered the max 'cause then he'd sign it, okay? And I think he's probably open to taking less than the max…he’s open to not taking $276 million. He wants to be in New York. He wants the team to stay together. But if Jim Dolan sets an ironclad spot and forces Karl to the market, he will have max offers. He can get that kind of money next summer if he wants to. But I honestly believe this is all gonna work out even if, again, you hear a little bit of, uh, wavering in the first couple of days of camp”
Stefan Bondy: Gersson Rosas’s contract was up. Per league sources, Rosas — who played an important role in building the Knicks championship roster — felt like he needed to grow as an executive, which also meant exploring other opportunities. Left on good terms with Leon Rose and his staff.
Dwyane Bacon: "I didn't want to go to New York, but my my agent wanted me to go to New York. End up firing him, going into the office, telling Leon Rose and and Wes, I don't want to be here. I appreciate y'all. No, I said it was so respectful. Like I appreciate y'all. But I just came off a season of me playing every game and averaging double figures in the league, which is very hard to do. And I'm I'm just getting started."
Ian Begley: NYK was interested in Jonas Valanciunas in ‘24 offseason. "We had a lot of talks with different teams. New York (was) one of them,” he said then. NYK will have solid depth at center if Valanciunas, a former client of Leon Rose, chooses Knicks in his current free agency. He is among centers on their radar
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Ian Begley: Leon Rose on Knicks re-signing Jose Alvarado: "Jose brought a toughness, competitiveness, and an unwavering commitment to winning from the moment he returned to his home in New York City. We're ecstatic to keep Jose home.”
Roommates Show: The truth has been revealed. Leon Rose is not Jalen Brunson’s godfather. But, he did meet Jalen before Rick did @BetMGM
Leon Rose on the criticism, at the time, of aggressively pursuing Brunson: “I got killed about Jalen, and now everyone thinks I’m a genius. It’s about what we did in order to get you. Clearing space, at the time people thinking that it was so much money that we were paying you. … This was the first major move and I had all the conviction in the world. I’ve known him since he was born, I know what he’s all about, I know what a winner he is, I know that I was willing to ride with him.”