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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.”
Remember LeBron James' "Decision" back in 2010? That was Rose, James' agent at the time, and Worldwide Wes. Carmelo Anthony's trade from the Denver Nuggets to the Knicks in 2011? Leon and Wes. Dolan had a good relationship with both men during Anthony's seven seasons in New York and admired the loyalty they seemed to have with clients. Dolan is a lot of things. Irascible. Unpredictable. Meddlesome. But he's also loyal. So when he went to replace Jackson in 2019, he kept coming back to the idea of Rose and Wesley -- two men he knew could handle the pressure cooker of New York and identify the type of players who could thrive in that environment, too. But maybe even more importantly, he trusted them to do it and largely allowed them to operate without interference. Those who know Dolan best say he'd simply learned from his past that ownership involvement isn't always productive. Others suggest his focus was split between the Knicks and building the Sphere in Las Vegas.
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“A lot of these guys have been through a championship in college with the Villanova guys,” Starks said. “They understand what it takes. We’ve got a great leader in Jalen [Brunson] and Karl-Anthony Towns. I’m excited about it. “These are such even-keeled individuals. All those guys. I think Leon [Rose] and [William Wesley] did a great job putting together like-minded individuals. And that’s what it takes. Guys that are not gonna get too high, get too low, and they cheer for one another and they like one another. That’s what it takes, to have that togetherness, because things can get tough. You got to know who’s in the same boat as you. You don’t want to see guys jumping ship. And these guys don’t jump ship. If the boat’s gonna go down, they’re gonna go down together.”
"And the way it went down and the way they handled business was crazy, bro," Rivers revealed. "They brought me to a dark room, it was Leon [Rose], Worldwide Wes [Knicks executive vice president and senior basketball advisor William Wesley], and Thibs. They're all three sitting there in the dark, with like a little light, it's like an interrogation-type thing. 'Hey man, we're gonna move you, we just got Derrick here. Until we find the right spot with you, you don't have to travel with the team anymore.'"
The New York Knicks are striking out with all their current NBA head coach targets right now, so they may have to turn to a former one. Ex-Knicks head coach Mike Woodson is considered to be a “wild card” for the job, Ian Begley of SportsNet New York reported Wednesday during an appearance on the “Knicks Film School” podcast. Begley says that the Knicks will likely “at least have a conversation” with Woodson and notes that Woodson has good relationships with Knicks owner James Dolan, president Leon Rose, and executive William Wesley.
Tim MacMahon: But the other thing is, the Knicks have been a dysfunctional franchise forever. And the first opponent that a Knicks head coach has to defeat is the Knicks. That's just the simple fact of the matter. That—and by the way, I didn't—well, I didn't make that line up. I'm borrowing it from people who know. But it is, and there are cliques in the Knicks management, in the front office. Let's just—listen, Thibs and Worldwide Wes are both Leon Rose guys, but they are not each other's guys, and that's been a thing for a while now. That's just the way it is. There have been people in that front office who have been wanting to run Thibs out of there for a couple of years now, at least. And they finally did.
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Magic Johnson: Mikal Bridges traded to the Knicks. Wow, hats off to Leon Rose and William Wesley aka World Wide Wes! This trade changes the landscape in the Eastern Conference. Now, the Knicks will challenge the Celtics for first place in the East while putting pressure on the Sixers and Bucks
One thing has not changed, however: The Knicks now, as ever, are in a perpetual hunt for another glitzy star—and Dolan, as ever, expects one. “That is factual,” said a source with ties to the Garden. The Rose-Wesley team “promised him stars,” the source said. “He didn’t hire them for their (experience) running a basketball team.” Had the Knicks faltered on the court the past two years, the person added, “You’d have seen the old Knicks that you’ve seen the last 24 years—some heads would have rolled.”
Ian Begley: Shake Milton has known Knicks Executive VP William Wesley for a long time. “He’s there anytime I need him. Whether it’s to talk, do whatever. He’s always there.” Milton said Wesley factored in to his decision to sign with Knicks after agreeing to buyout with Detroit: pic.twitter.com/yG8dypGYwy