Knicks president Leon Rose has “strengthened” his basketball operations staff, according to several NBA sources.
Rose has decided to withdraw the option on GM Scott Perry for the next season, but surprisingly, Perry’s two main scouting assumptions from 2017 are not expected: the assistant GM Gerald Madkins and the director of pro player staff Harold Ellis .
Contracts for Madkins, their chief scouting college and Ellis expire in August.
Their jobs were replaced this week with Rose adding longtime jazz college scout Walt Perrin and former GM network assistant Frank Zanin from Oklahoma City.
Perrin will perform college scouting, while Zanin will take care of professional scouting. For a beginner president from the world of agents, Rose has surrounded herself with two key basketball sheepdogs.
Perrin and Zanin arrive with multi-year agreements, while Perry’s is only for next season. Sources indicate that if all goes well, Perry will be in store for an extension next season. This is the case although he may have made a mistake in bringing Madkins on board, who has bounced around five teams in nine years.