\Grant and Tamia Hill had heard testimonials from Jerry Seinfeld and Spike Lee urging the couple to make New York their home and the Knicks their team for the next six years.
It was an impressive presentation for a franchise that in the summer of 2000 was trying to sign Hill to a roster that already included Hill’s boyhood idol, Patrick Ewing, as well as Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston. The Hills were flattered that the Knicks had flown a small army to Detroit that included Chazz Palminteri, Star Jones and the late Peter Boyle.
Everything was going smoothly until the actor Leon appeared on a video screen to clue Hill into some of the other benefits of being a big star in the Big Apple.
“Looking back it was funny,” Hill says. “He told me that if I came to New York I’ll have loads of women. My wife just looked at me. She wasn’t smiling.”
Hill eventually worked out a sign-and-trade with the Pistons and ended up with the Orlando Magic. The Leon faux pas wasn’t a deal-breaker. The Knicks simply didn’t have the salary-cap space to sign Hill.
That won’t be the case this time around. The Knicks have the financial flexibility to sign two “max” free agents and their plan is to sign LeBron James and any player LeBron James wants to play with.
It’s an obvious yet ambitious plan that the Knicks will carry out beginning at 12:01 on July 1, when James can officially become a free agent. The Knicks have recruited free agents before but no one of the magnitude of James, who is being courted by just about every team in the league.
And since the Knicks don’t have a successful team to use as a selling point, the club intends to use any and every resource possible to convince James that New York is the only place big enough for the NBA’s two-time MVP.
“They’ll probably do it in a way that no one else can do it,” Hill told the Daily News. “For a lot of these guys it will be the first time they’ve been recruited. A lot of these guys didn’t go to college. A guy like LeBron, he never went through that experience. The Knicks are going to do it right.”
John Gabriel, the Knicks’ director of pro scouting and free agency, is the lead man in recruiting James. Ten years ago, Gabriel was the Orlando general manager when the club signed Tracy McGrady and Hill to max contracts after failing to convince Tim Duncan to leave San Antonio. It is worth noting that the Magic never won a playoff series with McGrady and Hill, who was injured during most of his time in Orlando. But Gabriel was successful in signing two of the three biggest free agents that summer.
New York magazine recently described Gabriel as the “guy in charge of showering love on LeBron James.” That’s not too far off, although Gabriel will have help in Knicks executive Jamie Matthews, whose relationship with James dates back to the 2004 Olympics.
Knicks president Donnie Walsh has refused to discuss what plans the Knicks have in store for James, who is expected to make visits to Chicago, Miami and perhaps the Nets and Los Angeles as well. Besides the Knicks formally calling James at midnight and giving him a tour of what the renovated Madison Square Garden will look like, little is known about the team’s plans.
Several sources claim the Knicks will seek the help of James’ favorite team, the Yankees, as well as an assortment of celebrities from movies and music. And since James has talked about becoming the pro sports’ first billionaire team athlete, the Knicks will likely call upon a number of power brokers from the business world. Expect Donald Trump to be available.
“Believe you me, they know all the interests of the guys that they plan on wooing,” Hill added. “And whoever they need to have there or wherever they need to go, they’ll do it.”
“This has got to be bigger than anything they’ve ever done before,” says a person familiar with the Knicks’ thinking. “They just can’t give him a Knicks jersey and announce his name at the Garden. That won’t do it. And let’s not forget about the Dolan factor. Who knows if LeBron will like him?”
Garden chairman James Dolan has actually been an asset in recruiting, particularly when the Knicks pursued Larry Brown five years ago. It was only after Brown and Dolan began working together that their relationship fell apart.
Dolan’s history and not his personality is a weakness. The Knicks have had nine straight losing seasons since Dolan took full control at the Garden and James has said that his first priority is winning. That has not been the No. 1 priority at the Garden for the past decade.
Hill is the only free agent to ever be recruited twice by the Knicks, once in 2000 and again last summer. Dolan did not make the trip to Detroit 10 years ago because former Garden president Dave Checketts was in charge. Dolan, however, did take a more prominent role last summer when the Knicks recruited Hill and Jason Kidd, two players who ended up re-signing with the Suns and Mavericks, respectively. “I had never met him,” Hill said of Dolan. “And certainly you hear things and you read things. I actually had a pleasant hour-long conversation.”
Dolan, the lead singer in a blues band, immediately hit it off with Tamia Hill, a successful R&B singer.
“He was very nice to my wife,” Hill said. “They talked a lot about music. When you connect with someone’s wife, make her feel comfortable and recruit her in a sense it helps. I liked Dolan, Walsh and Mike (D’Antoni).”
Hill’s heart was set on returning to Phoenix but he said the Knicks’ hospitality and recruiting pitch “made my decision difficult.” Hill remembers taking a helicopter ride up to the Knicks’ training facility in Greenburgh, then returning to Manhattan. He thought about the size of the NBA’s biggest market and what it could mean for his and his wife’s careers.
“There is no place like New York,” Hill said. “I know some people are intimidated by it but I was excited. The front office and Donnie Walsh know how to recruit, if you want to call it that. But the city does a great job on its own.
“If they did all that for little old me I can’t imagine what they have in store for the big-time free agents.”
