Leon Rose became president of the basketball operation at Madison Square Garden a little over three years ago, March of 2020. In that time, Rose has done a lot, mostly because the Knicks have come back from being on the wrong side of the clown line in the NBA. They have finished fourth in the Eastern Conference and finished fifth, and won just the team’s second playoff series – wait for it – in this century. It’s a lot. Just not enough.

There has to be some urgency now for Rose, as patient an executive as he obviously likes being, if not as much as he likes being the New York City sports executive that the media can’t find. As crazy as this sounds, just because of the joke the Knicks had become over the two decades before Rose got to the Garden, getting the Knicks this far is the easy part compared to what comes next:

Moving up from the middle of the pack in the conference to the top of it.

To do that, Rose still needs a star. You keep hearing that the star he might be willing to wait for is Joel Embiid, on the chance that the Sixers might be on the verge of a teardown after the upcoming season. Embiid would be worth waiting for, if Rose thinks there might be a legitimate shot, even more than Zion Williamson, who doesn’t just come with more weight but more baggage.

But if Embiid isn’t coming, who is?

Jalen Brunson was a tremendous acquisition for Rose a year ago, and was the only Knick who showed up in Game 6 against the Heat. And that ain’t nothing. It also wasn’t enough to get the Knicks past the second round for the first time since the playoff season of 2000. Brunson is going to be a star at the Garden, and on a good contract for the team, for a long time. He also isn’t ever going to be the best player on a championship team. In the end, the Heat had Jimmy Butler and the Knicks did not. The Knicks went home and the Heat ended up in the NBA Finals.

Leon Rose isn’t going to get to where he wants to go by stockpiling talented role players. Rose absolutely hit the ball out of the park with Brunson, the first member of the Villanova Alumni Association, 33rd St. branch. He did swell with Josh Hart, and might even do better than that with Donte DiVincenzo. The Knicks might be better next season with DiVincenzo than they were this season. But by how much?

The Heat just made their second trip to the NBA Finals in four years, and it would be three in four if Butler had made that jump shot against the Celtics in Game 7 of the ‘22 conference finals. They have a complete, put-it-on-me, top star in Butler. Their role players are better. And don’t just have one of the best coaches in Erik Spoelstra. They have the best coach. Now Pat Riley, who runs the Heat, is after Damian Lillard. Portland says he’s not going to Miami. We’ll see about that.

You know why Riley wants to make a big move here? Because he knows that another window is closing in Miami. Riley knows as well as anyone that you only get so much time in sports, and especially in pro basketball, to make a run. Again: Rose has had just three years at the Garden. There’s still time to make a run with the Villanova guys, and RJ Barrett and Julius Randle and Immanuel Quickley and Mitchell Robinson. But he doesn’t have all the time in the world, no matter how many draft choices he still has in his pocket.

It has been 50 years since the Knicks won a title. It is 24 years since they were in the Finals. Before they got a first-round series off the Cavaliers this past spring, it had been 10 years since they got a first-round series off the Celtics. The reason Rose got his chance at the Garden is because the Knicks had become an outrageous and embarrassing failure, over far too long a time.

So Knick fans are willing to hang with him while he waits for a top star to want to come to New York the way Lillard, from all accounts, wants to go to Miami. For now, the Celtics make a big play for an ex-Knick named Kristaps Porzingis. The Suns have made a big play for Bradley Beal. Is James Harden any kind of long-term answer for the Knicks? No one thinks that he is. But would Harden make them better next season, and maybe help Randle get better? He might. And, guess what? If he could play with Kevin Durant he could play with Brunson.

If you are a Knicks fan, you sure are willing to wait for Embiid if the Knicks might have a shot at him in a year. But if there’s no shot, if the Sixers get something for Harden and are still better than the Knicks next season, how many real impact players does Rose watch go play somewhere else? How can he possibly think he can beat the Heat next season the way the Knicks couldn’t do that this season if Riley gets Lillard?

Maybe Leon Rose makes a move, one bigger than DiVincenzo, this week, or next, or next month, and everything changes. But if not then, when? How much of a window does he think he has? If he’s not on the clock, he ought to be.

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