Steve Mills Returns to Knicks, Replacing Grunwald

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Glen Grunwald will remain with the Knicks as an  adviser.

In a startling move, the Knicks announced Thursday that they would begin training camp Monday with a new president and general manager.

Steve Mills, who spent a decade as one of the highest-ranking executives at Madison Square Garden before departing in June 2009, will replace Glen Grunwald, who spent the last three seasons helping to transform the Knicks into a competitive team.

The Knicks said Grunwald would remain with the team as an adviser, but it was unclear how much he would be involved in future decisions.

Mills was president of Madison Square Garden from 2003 to 2008, a period in which the Knicks were in disarray on and off the court. It was Mills who recommended that Isiah Thomas be hired as the Knicks’ president in December 2003.

The move came to haunt Mills when another team executive, Anucha Browne Sanders, sued Thomas and the Garden in January 2006 for sexual harassment. Browne Sanders, who had been hired by Mills, was awarded $11.6 million in punitive damages by a jury in October 2007. (The case was later settled for $11.5 million.)

A year after the trial, Mills was replaced as Garden president by Scott O’Neil. Mills had previously ceded authority over the Knicks when the team named Donnie Walsh as the new team president in April 2008.

“I am pleased to be able to welcome Steve back to the Knicks,” the Knicks’ owner, James L. Dolan, said in a statement released by the team. “He is a well-respected sports executive with a strong background in basketball, as well as a familiarity with N.B.A. operations and our company. We look forward to his leadership and believe he is the right person to help us reach our ultimate goal of winning an N.B.A. championship.”

The Knicks’ announcement came one day after Dolan appeared at a news conference with the Nets to talk about the 2015 N.B.A. All-Star Game, which the two teams, and rivals, will host. But that moment of harmony, in which Dolan uncharacteristically took questions from reporters, was followed by Thursday’s management shake-up.

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