Knicks use Abu Dhabi trip as an opportunity for some team bonding
Fans take pictures with Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns after an NBA preseason game against the Philadelphia 76ers in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. Credit: AP/Altaf Qadri
YAS ISLAND, Abu Dhabi
It’s not an uncommon plan for Knicks leadership to gather the team for training camp in some locale where it can bond and focus.
For the Phil Jackson era, it was West Point, a short ride from the Westchester training center. Under Tom Thibodeau, the team returned to a place they had gone long ago in his days as an assistant coach, flying to Charleston, South Carolina, for a bit of history and military mindset at the Citadel campus, where the field outside the practice gym had parked jet fighters and tanks.
After taking the head-coaching job, Mike Brown might not have chosen to fly about 7,000 miles from New York to Abu Dhabi. The decision predated his arrival and was tied to the NBA’s global expansion and Madison Square Garden leadership’s intention to build a second Sphere project among the entertainment options being rapidly constructed in the desert.
The long — really long — flight through the night toyed with the finely tuned bodies and minds of the players, upsetting sleep cycles a week into training camp to rush into a pair of preseason games.
And it was hot. Not just the temperature, which — if the team could figure out the conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit — topped 100 degrees every day. But it even made the Las Vegas Summer League seem mild, because unlike that dry heat, the humidity in this desert locale on the Arabian Gulf usually hovered around 50%.
The Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers were ensconced in the lush St. Regis resort on the Saadiyat Island beach, but a dip into the water wasn’t exactly cooling. The water, as players acknowledged, was bathtub-hot and saltier than a hot pretzel in Philly.
Still, they not only survived but thrived. They rode camels in the desert. They ate local cuisine and experienced Middle Eastern customs.
While much of Abu Dhabi is a work in progress, with construction cranes perched nearly everywhere, the Knicks conducted practices and morning shootarounds at the Abu Dhabi campus of New York University — a facility that rivaled any college practice gym they hit on road swings through the league in the regular season.
Etihad Arena, though not as large as NBA arenas, was packed to the top and — as it is in so many road stops for the Knicks — had the feel of a home crowd for New York.
Wild applause greeted the introduction of Patrick Ewing and Derrick Rose among groups of NBA legends. It was nearly as loud when Jalen Brunson was the last name called in pregame introductions.
“Playing here was great,” Brunson said when the second game was over and the Knicks were ready to rush to the airport. “The experience here was amazing, seeing the fans, being able to do what we do on the court and also have fun off the court. Great bonding experience for us. I’m just happy we were able to come away with a couple of wins.”
Away from New York, the Knicks learned more of the new systems being implemented by Brown, but it wasn’t exactly all basketball. Families joined the players, coaches and executives — wives, girlfriends, some parents and children.
And when all of the tourist adventures were over and the two games were complete, the Knicks had one more adventure left: racing the 76ers to Zayed International Airport.
Two departure windows were available for their chartered flights. The team that got there first would claim the prime spot and the other would have to wait another hour. The Knicks won the games; the 76ers won the race.
Most important will be how the time spent overseas acclimated the team to the new system. The starters’ performance Saturday seemed to be an indicator of buy-in. As long as Josh Hart’s back injury is minor, the trip can be considered a success.
“It was a great trip,” Brown said. “We really enjoyed it. The people here were very welcoming. We couldn’t ask for a better environment to be with our families and each other and I thought we got a lot out of the trip as a whole. We grew. And we’ll just keep trying to get a little bit better every day knowing as we go along, we’ll probably take a couple steps back. We can’t get discouraged when that happens and just start stacking days the right way.”
Before they got in the air, the Knicks’ Mitchell Robinson, self-proclaimed farmer and all country, posted: “So after visiting Abu Dhabi for the first time in my life I can honestly say it’s been a blast. I know I said I’ll never leave the country but hell at this point I’m definitely visiting other places. I’m gonna travel the world.”
It was seven days in the desert. In a long NBA season, one the Knicks hope extends even longer than last season’s trip to the Eastern Conference finals, it was a starting point, the prelude to a 14-hour flight home, a day off and then back to work.
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
