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

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