Phil Jackson to the New York Knicks?
That has been the talk for much of the day, and with good reason. Although Jackson doesn’t really have any experience in a front office position, he does, obviously, have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to the game of basketball. It certainly would create quite an intrigue around the league to see if he has what it takes to help right the ship for this struggling Knicks organization with so many movable parts.
According to Chris Broussard of ESPN, Jackson is all but ready to give it a go for the franchise he once played for:
All indications are that Phil Jackson will accept the New York Knicks’ offer to join the club’s front office, according to a league source.
“The Knicks have a sense of what’s going to happen,” the source said. “And as of right now, it looks like Phil’s taking the job. There’s always the possibility of something falling apart at the last minute, but the Knicks’ sense is that he’s joining them.”
The sides are still working out the details, including what Jackson’s title will be, how much time he will spend in New York and when in the next few months he will start his job.
Jackson’s answer is expected to become official within the next day or so. The Knicks have not scheduled an announcement.
The longtime former coach will not be a mere consultant for the Knicks, as he was recently for the Detroit Pistons. Whatever his title, the source said, Jackson will be an integral part of the club’s basketball operations, although he will definitely not coach the team.
Fans and the team would undoubtedly welcome such a high-profiled acquisition, but according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports, it would be far from a happy marriage between the former coach and James Dolan:
Now, the Knicks are negotiating a front-office deal with Phil Jackson. He’s pushing for a monumental salary, understanding the leverage his Knicks championship roots and 11 NBA titles as a coach give him in a courtship gone public. One more famous name punches the code into Dolan’s Garden ATM, with full understanding the transaction fee is a guarantee of a most unhappy ending.
“Nobody will ever have full autonomy,” a high-ranking league official told Yahoo Sports. “Donnie had it in his deal, and when he questioned it, it was, ‘See you later.’ “
Make no mistake: Thus far, there’s no assurance Jackson will come work for the Knicks. If he does, history tells us the Jackson-Dolan dynamic will end horribly for everyone. Dolan will declare a betrayal, and Jackson will walk away with tens of millions of Cablevision’s dollars and a fistful more on a publishing advance to ridicule Dolan’s meddling ways and distance himself from whatever failures occurred on his watch.
Aside from that, there are also officials around the league who question whether Jackson will even be committed enough to truly make a difference at such a high position:
Far less accomplished people have been hired to run franchises, thus there’s no arguing Jackson isn’t worthy of an opportunity. Nevertheless, there are significant doubts about Jackson’s ability to translate his coaching genius to front-office organization and tenacity. Respected officials doubt his desire to spend the necessary time evaluating talent, constructing a staff beyond those indebted cronies forever at his NBA side. They wonder about his commitment to investing time into the small, mundane assignments that are necessary to turning a loser into a contender. How much time will Jackson even spend in New York?
Wojnarowski reiterated in a later tweet that nothing is eminent, so all of this could turn out to be nothing but speculation.
As I reported in column, still no assurance an agreement will be reached. No one in Jackson’s world thinks deal is “close,” that’s for sure.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) March 11, 2014
If, however, the Knicks do manage to pull this off, they could also be looking to hire Steve Kerr as a head coach, from RealGM:
The New York Knicks and Phil Jackson continue to discuss a deal for him to run the front office.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports that no one in Jackson’s camp thinks a deal is “close.”
Bill Simmons of ESPN reported on Sunday that Steve Kerr would be the leading candidate to become head coach if Jackson is hired. Frank Isola of the New York Daily News also reports Kerr could be strongly considered.
Kerr is currently an analyst with TNT and was previously general manager of the Phoenix Suns.
It sounds like if Jackson is hired, Woodson is all but gone regardless of what happens this season. Surely, we’ll hear more about this developing situation soon enough.
LILLARD AND BEVERLEY HAVE BEEF:
Things got feisty between Damian Lillard and Patrick Beverley during Sunday’s intense matchup between the Houston Rockets and Portland Trail Blazers. The two somewhat went at each other near the end of the contest, and had some words after the game as well. Here is what Lillard had to say about the pesky Rockets point guard, via Dan Feldman of ProBasketballTalk:
“You’ve got somebody out there that want to try to be bumping and doing little slick stuff. You know what I mean?” Lillard said in a CSN Northwest video. “I’m not going to buy into it, but I’m also not going to just let it fly. I’m going to say something. I mean, that’s what he does. I don’t really care for that, but I’m just not going to let somebody be all in my chest, doing all this extra stuff. That’s not basketball.”
During their mini altercation late in regulation, Lillard said he told Beverley only, “What are you doing?”
In overtime, Lillard fouled out on an offensive foul, striking Beverley in the face as he drove by. Beverley – often to Lillard’s dismay – drew most of the six fouls.
“Everybody knows what he does to get under people’s skin,” Lillard said.
Beverley had a whole lot more to say about Lillard, from Ben Golliver of SI:
“Damian Lillard whines. So, I’m not a big fan of that. I don’t go out there and try to start fights with anybody. I go out there and play my game. That’s what I do. I don’t go out there and try to hack people. I don’t go out there and do that. Prior to this game he was shooting 29 percent against me. That’s a credit to our team defense and what we’re doing. We don’t go out there and try to hurt people, we don’t go out there and try to hack people. We go out there and be aggressive on defense and that’s what gets us stops.
…
“I don’t care what he says. You’re a grown man. You’re a professional basketball player – professional first. He fouled out before I did.
…
“You always push and shove, and that’s basketball. I don’t know how other people were raised, but that’s basketball. That’s how you grew up playing, battling. You get pushed down. You get back up. You battle the next guy. You should enjoy the competition. No one is going out there to hurt someone, and I was kind of offended the way that he was talking. I’m a positive person. I usually don’t say anything about anything, but if I feel that something is not right, I’m definitely going to mention about it. And the things that he was saying yesterday really bothered me. I played against all the other top point guards, all the other All-Star point guards, and it was nothing but praise. ‘Patrick pushes me, Patrick plays hard, he forces me to better my game. Patrick does this.’ He whines and says that I’m pushing and all that. I just wanted to get that off my chest.”
Ouch. Clearly, Beverley, whose team won the game in overtime, got the better of the exchange on and off the court with Lillard. He has a point about Lillard complaining about the extracurricular activities: that’s good, hard, playoff-type basketball, and if Lillard has a problem handling that kind of pressure, good luck to him when he reaches the playoffs for the first time this season.
It’s in Beverley’s nature to play the pesky type of defense that no guard looks forward to facing, and he’s not doing anything illegal. In fact, his style is what landed him not only a spot on an NBA roster, but the starting job on a contending team. When he does get extra aggressive, the refs tend to call it on him more often times than not.
Lillard is a very talented young player that clearly fears no one, but he will have to overcome his dislike of physical contact if he’s going to have any kind of success in the postseason. Maybe that very mindset of thinking Beverley does “slick stuff” is what causes Lillard to play so uninspired on the defensive end on most nights.
CLIP OF THE DAY:
In the midst of a monster game against the Phoenix Suns on Monday, Blake Griffin decided to pay homage to Karl Malone by going for this dunk:
That’s pretty.
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