It's a new era of Knicks basketball: safe, sensible, patient and … boring?

NEW YORK – The Knicks’ brass held its annual state-of-the-team address Thursday, and it wouldn’t be the Knicks if it didn’t have a little drama. Jimmy Butler, Minnesota’s All-Star two-guard, wants out, and New York is reportedly on his list of desired teams.

So, in a roundabout, non-tampering way, Knicks president Steve Mills was asked if he was interested.

“Our process and our view of where the season is going and where the team is going hasn’t changed since we talked about it a year ago, hasn’t changed since I talked about it two days ago,” Mills said. “We’re committed to not missing any steps. It’s a step-by-step process. We’re focused on the guys we have on our roster, how can we build them, how can we develop them and we’re going to continue on with our plan.”

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OK. Later, Mills was asked why holding on to draft picks was so important to him.

“Generally, our philosophy is that we’re in a building mode, we need to draft players, we need to build through the draft, we need to develop our young players and we feel comfortable organizationally where we are going here,” Mills said. “When it’s time for us to go after free agents, we’ll be a place to attract free agents. We shouldn’t use our draft picks like that. We should focus on drafting good players. Our plan is not to use our draft picks as that [trade collateral]. We want to draft players and develop. That’s the plan we laid out as a team.”

That doesn’t eliminate the Knicks as contenders for Butler, of course. Last summer, Paul George was swapped for two players — and no picks. The only pick that transferred in the Kawhi Leonard trade in July was a protected one. Mills didn’t suggest the Knicks weren’t interested — just that New York’s days of mortgaging its future are over.

“At the end of the day, we’re together,” Knicks coach David Fizdale said. “This is a full-fledged plan that we have all come together and agreed to. We want to build it from the ground up, culturally. We don’t want to jump at the shiny things. We want to make solid decisions and be patient with this process.”

That’s right, folks, the Knicks are hell-bent on being … boring. The decades-long soap opera headlined by Stephon Marbury, Isiah Thomas, Carmelo Anthony and Phil Jackson? Done with. The splashy signings that garnered headlines but did little to improve the on-court product? Don’t count on them. Interference from owner James Dolan? Mills said Dolan has signed off on the methodical approach — and only needs to be checked with if they plan to deviate from it.

And so, for much of a 35-minute media availability at the Hulu Theatre inside Madison Square Garden, the Knicks’ brain trust — Mills, Fizdale and GM Scott Perry — didn’t say much of anything. They offered no timetable on Kristaps Porzingis, who is recovering from knee surgery. “When he feels 100 percent comfortable, and we do, and we’re not taking any risks with him, he’ll come back,” Mills said. There was no update on Joakim Noah, with whom the Knicks hope to come to an agreement on a buyout before the start of training camp. “Nothing has changed with Joakim,” Perry said. “The hope is we can come to a resolution that is both advantageous to both Joakim and the Knicks.”

Even Fizdale was low-key. In his year-plus stint as head coach in Memphis, Fizdale rarely filtered his thoughts. When he was happy with his team, he said it. When he was frustrated, he said that, too. On Thursday, Fizdale admitted he may need to bottle a few things up as he transitions from one of the NBA’s smallest markets to its largest.

“I’m still going to have to be myself,” Fizdale said. “It’s not necessarily about the market change, it’s about how I continue to grow as a coach. I always self-evaluate really hard. So no matter what, whether it’s how I interview or how I coach, what kind of husband I am, what kind of dad I am, I’m hard on myself. I look at it as a time for me to take another step forward in my growth process. I’m honest about what I think is happening, but I also think with this being a bigger media market, there are some things that have to stay closer to the vest.”

Fizdale is keenly aware of the attention paid to his relationship with Marc Gasol, the Grizzlies’ franchise player who clashed with Fizdale in Memphis. When Fizdale visited Porzingis in Latvia this summer, he made it clear all topics were on the table.

“There was enough stuff from the last place that I was at, I wanted to be open and honest and share with him in a way that we can get it all out on the table if there is something that needs to be discussed,” Fizdale said. “To my pleasant surprise, I got over there and that was very little part of our discussion. It was family, vision and a lot of eating.”

So get ready, NBA, for … what, exactly? The Knicks won 29 games last season, finishing 14 games out of the playoffs. Will they be better? Maybe, but perhaps not by much. They are younger and more athletic, and Fizdale said the makeup of the roster fits how he wants to play. The team will play fast, Fizdale declared, without any ball dominant players on offense, and will attempt to harness that athleticism in a switch-happy defense. But Porzingis won’t be ready to start the season — and New York appears to be in no rush to bring him back.

Indeed, the losses may pile up, but for one season anyway, the Knicks don’t seem to care. On Thursday, Mills talked about how the perception of the team was already changing league-wide. “We feel good that the view of the Knicks is different than it was before,” Mills said. “There is a different vibe about how we do things.” Fizdale likened the team’s potential growing pains to what Philadelphia has experienced in recent years. The Sixers, Fizdale said, had to learn how to win close games. “I’m hoping,” Fizdale said, “[that] we’re in some of those close games.”

Carmelo — or anyone like him — isn’t coming through that door, but neither is the drama that came with him. Will the Knicks be bad? Maybe. Will they be dysfunctional? Not if Mills, Perry and Fizdale can prevent it.

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