By now, we all know that Phil Jackson is looking to make some major changes within the New York Knicks organization. He has fired Mike Woodson and his coaching staff, is making internal changes (or at least trying to do so with some resistance from Jim Dolan), has already stated that he will move forward with or without Carmelo Anthony, and will soon hire a new coach.
Whether he’s doing everything correctly remains to be seen, but at the very least, the firing of the coaching staff looked to be the right thing to do. According to some of the players in their exit interviews, they more or less didn’t believe in what Woodson had to say, from Ian Begley of ESPN NY:
Some told Jackson that the players didn’t “buy in” like they had the year before. This can be taken as an indictment of either the players or ex-coach Mike Woodson — depending on how you view the season.
Players also told Jackson that they weren’t always “on the same page” in 2013-14. That seems to be a direct indictment of Woodson.
If players aren’t buying into what the coach is preaching, and if it’s not just one player saying this, that essentially means the coach has lost his team. That wasn’t too hard to see even from the outside. Whatever dysfunction there may have been between the coach and players, it translated into the product that was being put out on the floor.
From there, Jackson drew his own conclusions and explained what really went wrong with the Knicks:
“The fall from grace for this basketball club this year, as precipitous as it was, had so many different angles. Starting from training camp, all the way through, until basically the end of February, maybe after the All-Star game, things started to get better. All the players were very sheepish about the way they ended up this season and vowed it should not happen again.
“We emphasized the fact that it starts now. Putting together positive mindset, positive work ethic, coming to camp ready to play and not getting ready to play in camp in October. That was really one of our messages to the players. One of the messages from the players was that this is a very talented team, and that they had to have a lot of games where they forced their talent on opposing teams rather than playing with freedom and making things easy. So all the wins were hard to get, and there were wins that were won with talent basically, not with team play, which I thought was an accurate statement. So I think the talent’s here.”
Jackson said it will be incumbent on the team’s next coach to get the players back on the same page next season.
“How to blend [the talent] together is a coaching decision and actually a personnel decision, how to find that right combination of people to get the best out of the players and to make this a smooth functional team,” Jackson said. “So that’s what we’re going to try to do here in the next couple, three months, getting this team ready for next season, is trying to get the personnel that can play together and the coach that can blend that talent.”
With that in mind, Jackson will finally meet up with Steve Kerr, as rumored for quite a while now, next week. Marc Berman of New York Post has details:
Phil Jackson said he will meet with Steve Kerr in the next week to gauge his interest in coaching the Knicks after his fiancée, Jeanie Buss, failed in recent days to convince Jackson to coach.
In his first comments since Monday’s firing of Mike Woodson, Jackson said he and Kerr, the overwhelming favorite to be the Knicks’ next head coach, have “philosophically a strong connection.’’
Jackson indicated he could have a new coach in place “in the next month,” but said the only timetable is making a hire before the summer league in July. Kerr will be in Brooklyn on Sunday to broadcast the Raptors-Nets and they likely will meet the next day.
BIG O THINKS MELO SHOULD LEAVE TOWN:
Is Carmelo Anthony getting too much blame for what happened in New York? Does he deserve something better? According to Oscar Robertson, aka “Big O”, Anthony gets undeserved blame for everything and should look to move to Houston if given the opportunity. Begley of ESPN NY has the transcription:
“I would leave today [if I were Carmelo],” Roberston said on SiriusXM NBA radio Thursday. “… Let me tell you why: wherever that kid has gone, when he was at Denver, they had a team that fooled around with the ball, fooled around with the ball, then all of the sudden when they needed a basket, threw it to Carmelo. Then, when he shot the ball, they said he shot too much. Then when he didn’t shoot they said he didn’t shoot enough.
“No matter what he does in New York they’re going to criticize him, the people are going to criticize him, because you got guys on [the Knicks] that cannot play. You got guys that are hurt all the time.”
“If he goes to Houston, they’re gonna win everything,” Robertson told host and well-known Knicks fan Spike Lee. “You look at LeBron [James], LeBron’s got a great game and the kid down at Oklahoma, [Kevin] Durant’s got a great game — they can’t out-shoot Carmelo. … I’ve seen him in a lot of basketball games over the years and I’m telling you right now the kid, he just can get that shot away. Now he’s gotten smarter, he’s going to the basket a lot. But what gets me is that everyone thinks that everything that happens bad is his fault.”
“Let me ask you: When was the last time Phil Jackson played? … I think Phil is great to have gotten $12 million out of [Knicks owner Jim Dolan]. Super job. Take the money and run,” Roberston said. “If I were Carmelo I would say, ‘Listen, I’m not gonna stay here and take all this gruff and all this criticism. You got other guys on this team making $12, $15, $16 million and doing nothing, and here I am averaging 28, 29 points per game.’ “
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Despite the complete meltdown of the Indiana Pacers in the second half of the season that has translated into the playoffs, Frank Vogel’s job is reportedly safe, according to Kevin Pritchard:
Larry Bird just told me his sources say Frank Vogel’s job is safe. @Pacers
— Kevin Pritchard (@PacersKev) April 24, 2014
It may be worth noting that the tweet was sent out before their loss on Thursday to drop to 1-2 against the Atlanta Hawks – the team that failed to win 40 games this season.
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