If outsized expectations is the root of frustration, it's no wonder New York Knicks management is frustrated. President Steve Mills and general manager Scott Perry expected this Knicks team to be competitive. Who knows what made them expect this, but they did, and now the Knicks are arguably the worst team in the league with a record of 2-8 after a 21-point loss to the Cavs on Sunday night. 

After that loss, Mills and Perry -- in a highly unusual move for executives at any time, let alone 10 games into a season -- called an impromptu press conference to let everyone know they "are not happy with where the team's at right now," citing inconsistent play and saying "we've got to find a way to play complete games." 

What Perry and Mills were very clearly doing, regardless of their empty claims of support for, and belief in, the coaching staff, was establishing coach David Fizdale as a proper scapegoat for the sin of not getting enough out of the roster THEY built for him, and indeed, Fizdale appears to be on the chopping block. 

On Monday, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Mills had "started to lay the internal groundwork for the eventual dismissal of coach David Fizdale" even before the loss to the Cavs. From ESPN:

Mills is selling owner James Dolan on a roster constructed to be highly competitive in the Eastern Conference, leaving Fizdale vulnerable to an ouster only weeks into the second season of a four-year contract that league sources say is worth $22 million.

Days before exiled star Kristaps Porzingis returned to Madison Square Garden with the Dallas Mavericks, Mills delivered the first public salvo on shaping an organizational narrative that the Knicks' struggles aren't born of an overmatched roster, but the lack of a "consistent level of effort and execution."

"Everyone is moving to their positions now," a league source close to management and the coaching staff told ESPN. "This is how they'll make [Fizdale] the fall guy."

Fizdale, for his part, said on Sunday that he accepts "full responsibility" for any and all Knicks shortcomings, and indeed this isn't to suggest that Fizdale couldn't have the Knicks playing better, or harder, or more consistently, or however you want to frame it. When you beat a good Dallas team, and lose by two to a really good Celtics team, you're clearly capable, on some level, of playing some pretty solid basketball. 

But every team in the NBA is capable of playing solid basketball on a given night. That's why they're an NBA team. If Mills and Perry were under the impression they had built a "highly competitive" team that was going to play CONSISTENTLY good basketball and actually win a lot of games, again, no wonder they're frustrated. They could've had Red Auerbach coaching, and they should've known this was going to be a slow struggle upward. 

But what can you say?

It's the Knicks.