Phil Jackson won’t be awful as president of the New York Knicks. He certainly won’t be as bad as Isiah Thomas was in running the club. And he will almost certainly be better than David Kahn, Bryan Colangelo, Joe Dumars, Otis Smith and Geoff Petrie have been in recent years. But Phil Jackson isn’t Isiah Thomas, or David Kahn, or Bryan Colangelo. He’s Phil Jackson, with a reputation of all things basketball that he touches turning to gold. And that’s exactly what
In the eyes of many, the unbridled mess that is the New York Knicks just received the most drastic makeover this side of Ally Sheedy in “The Breakfast Club” upon hiring Phil Jackson as team president and Zen Master Extraordinaire. Hopes are high in the Big Apple, but plenty of question marks linger, even for a man with 11 rings. It remains to be seen whether Jackson’s arrival provides enough confidence and stability to convince Carmelo Anthony to re-up. (A cynic,
It’s All Phil All The Time in New York these days. No Knicks story can be written without a reference – or more – to Phil Jackson’s imminent ascension as the new Czar of MSG. Jackson, as is his wont, is playing it every so coy and cagey, relishing in the mystery of it all. He knows what he’s doing, right? (OK, he’s getting $12 million, so he got that part right.) But this whole thing runs counter to Jackson’s usual M.O., which
The week of March 9th-16th should hence forth be known as Phil Jackson Week. In the world of basketball at least. Because as the Zen Master continues to dominate the daily headlines, well, that’s sure what it feels like. [Read more…]
The Knicks have won five straight games and now sit just 3.5 games from the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. The fans of Gotham are finally excited about the Knicks for the first time this season. The Bucks come to New York on Saturday, and if the Knicks can pull out an expected victory, they’ll close the gap between them and the Hawks even further. Right now, ESPN.com has the Knicks’ playoff odds at 15%. With the Knicks having five
The narrative is only slightly different today, but that much more impactful. According to ESPN’s Chris Broussard, the New York Knicks are expected to finalize a deal with Phil Jackson to bring the legendary head coach into the organization in a major front office role: “Everything is pretty much done,” the source said. “There are just some little things here and there that need to be worked out, but the Knicks are very confident that this is essentially done.” [Read more…]
If Phil Jackson takes over the New York Knicks, he’ll have a tough job on his hands. He’ll have to rebuild in free agency in 2015, because the Knicks have traded away their 2014 and 2016 first-round picks and their second-round picks in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Plus Raymond Felton will still be under contract in 2015-16, as will JR Smith. Oh, and first he’ll have to convince Carmelo Anthony to stay. Plenty of talk on that, plus other subjects including Frank Isola
We now have ESPN.com reporting that all the pieces are in place for Phil Jackson to take over the front office for the New York Knicks, which means there is a 50 percent chance it will happen. But let’s go ahead and suppose the Worldwide Leader got one right – even though the highly respected Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports is urging caution, saying things aren’t anywhere near done. Charley Rosen hinted at the same thing on this site 2 days