Knicks · Rosen Article From Today (page 1)
Real interesting read.
"While many fans and media are celebrating the firing of Phil Jackson, it says here that, while he has certainly made many mistakes, he doesn’t deserve the universal condemnation he is now receiving.
One big reason for his dismissal was the furious bias against him on the part of the New York media. This has its roots in 1999, when he was between his stints in Chicago and Los Angeles.
Then-Knicks president Dave Checketts asked for a private meeting with him. The Knicks were then coached by Jeff Van Gundy and were struggling — but eventually reached the NBA Finals in the lockout-shortened season.
The subject of Jackson taking Van Gundy’s job was never raised. In fact, Checketts only wanted P.J.’s opinion of the Knicks’ roster — which players were keepers and which should be goners?
But the New York sportswriters believed Jackson was after Van Gundy’s job and thereafter routinely cast Jackson as a villain.
When P.J. did come to the Big Apple over a decade later, he had to make numerous decisions.
Jackson dealt Raymond Felton (a slow, mediocre point guard) and Tyson Chandler (a no-offense, overrated defense and chronic malcontent) to Dallas for Shane Larkin, Samuel Dalembert, Joe Calderon, and Wayne Elliington. Basically not much for even less.
He gave J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert a chance to show that they could play team ball. But Smith proved to be totally unreliable with a ball in his hands. Shumpert’s play was spotty. He alienated teammates with his loud, boisterous, and annoying presence in the locker room.
They were both sent out of town.
In return, the Knicks got Lance Thomas and Lou Amundson — both useful players — plus a draft choice and an $8.5 million trade exception.
Next to go was Tim Hardaway, Jr., who was selfish, defenseless, and incredibly immature. In exchange, New York received the No. 19 draft pick, which translated into Jerian Grant.
Then came the major deal: Robin Lopez, Grant, and Jose Calderon for Derrick Rose and Justin Holiday.
Losing Lopez, a defensive stalwart and all-around positive presence, was painful. Grant was a poor shooter who had trouble adjusting to the point guard position. Calderon was way past his prime.
Holiday, however, was an excellent long-range shooter and an improving defender. Rose was apparently healthy, but his shaky jumper, poor defense, and penchant for over-penetrating made him a risky get. The idea, though, was for Rose to be a heavy-duty scorer and, as such, take some pressure off Kristaps Porzingis.
Rose being MIA in training camp was disruptive. Plus, his positives failed to outweigh his negatives.
Two more of Jackson’s major moves have to be examined.
The aim in re-signing Carmelo Anthony to a no-trade contract was (as the triangle unfolded) to have Melo get the ball at the pinch-post, i.e., one elbow or the other. From there, he would be one or two dribbles away from the hoop, and too isolated to be easily double-teamed.
When the triangle fails to generate a good look and the shot clock is expiring, getting the ball to someone who can create his own shots is a necessity. In other words, Melo was given the chance to be the next Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant.
But Anthony wanted no part of sacrificing his hold-and-shoot game in favor of a team-oriented attack.
(By the way, despite its many critics, the triangle can still be a viable and effective NBA offense … but that’s another story.)
Then there was the signing of Joakim Noah to a humongous free-agent contract. Yes, Noah had lost a half-step laterally, but he was still a tough and savvy defender. Because he was arguably the best passing big in the league, Noah was also a perfect fit for the triangle.
But he wasn’t in game shape when he reported to training camp. Then he got sick and his conditioning got worse. As a result, he was never sufficiently physically fit to be a plus-player. Then he got hurt. Then he took a drug he shouldn’t have taken.
All told, signing Noah was an unmitigated disaster — not totally of Jackson’s making.
Okay, what about Melo?
His sticky fingers destroyed any offensive cohesion. He saved steps on defense and was always a malcontent. Trading him would have been (and still is) best for him and for the organization.
Yet because of the media’s bias, Melo was always portrayed as a victim and Jackson the victimizer. The first part of this scenario lasted until Anthony’s allegedly adulterous affair became public knowledge.
And Porzingis?
True, because of Melo and Rose, K.P. didn’t get enough shots. However, he was also unduly influenced by Anthony’s private complaining, so much so that he became disrespectful to several members of the coaching staff.
This unleashed another problem only because the assistants left from Derek Fisher’s tenure were imported (along with Fisher) from Oklahoma City. They disregarded anything and everything said by Kurt Rambis and Jimmy Cleamons.
Jackson does deserve some blame for not foreseeing this contagious disagreement among the staff.
Anyway, with Porzingis acting like a prima donna, and with his guaranteed tenure in New York limited to the next two seasons, how risky would it be to make him the focus of the offense?
So, then, if Jackson’s quick fix with Rose and Noah was an unmitigated failure, there were other factors in the team’s downward turn.
But what’s done is done.
Jackson has never worried about his “legacy.” That’s just another false concern of the media.
Anyway, while I have yet to connect with him, I’m sure Jackson is somewhat relieved by escaping from what was a lose-lose situation.
Even so, after a career top-heavy with success, the failure of his latest (and last?) NBA adventure is sure to be painful for him.
Jackson should be remembered not only for his rings, but for his honesty, loyalty, willingness to take risks, and above all for being, to all who know him well, a championship-caliber human being."
https://www.fanragsports.com/nba/knicks/rosen-analyzing-phil-jacksons-tenure-knicks/
I just hope that now things will calm down, but you just know that there's always another Media driven scandal right around the corner. Melo and KP got their way but what does that really do for the franchise? It shows any new GM that he will never really have the power. KP's agents ASM Sports pulled a CAA move and it worked. Now they have even MORE POWER than before. Is that a good thing for the Knicks???
Like most divorces there is usually lots of blame to share.
Usually Knicks live to regret their firings as the good talent finds its places and succeeds elsewhere.
fishmike wrote:every GM that fails has these "things" happen to him. What makes GMs great is their ability to minimize these things and move forward. Every issue for Phil was a dramatic disaster. He failed to deliver on his promises for transparency for starters. He rarely communicated with the media and his use of twitter was idiotic. Phil made just enough mistakes to get himself chopped. There is very little more this this story than that.
What I came away with is that the team and franchise was a circus before he got there. He tried to fix it but the carnies want and are comfortable with their circus.
Not every gm walks into situations like these. Not every gm has to deal with a melo type that gets everyone fired. Not every new gm is stuck with no rookies and no draft picks going forward.
Sinix wrote:Yea... Melo's fault. We get it.fishmike wrote:every GM that fails has these "things" happen to him. What makes GMs great is their ability to minimize these things and move forward. Every issue for Phil was a dramatic disaster. He failed to deliver on his promises for transparency for starters. He rarely communicated with the media and his use of twitter was idiotic. Phil made just enough mistakes to get himself chopped. There is very little more this this story than that.What I came away with is that the team and franchise was a circus before he got there. He tried to fix it but the carnies want and are comfortable with their circus.
Not every gm walks into situations like these. Not every gm has to deal with a melo type that gets everyone fired. Not every new gm is stuck with no rookies and no draft picks going forward.
fishmike wrote:Sinix wrote:Yea... Melo's fault. We get it.fishmike wrote:every GM that fails has these "things" happen to him. What makes GMs great is their ability to minimize these things and move forward. Every issue for Phil was a dramatic disaster. He failed to deliver on his promises for transparency for starters. He rarely communicated with the media and his use of twitter was idiotic. Phil made just enough mistakes to get himself chopped. There is very little more this this story than that.What I came away with is that the team and franchise was a circus before he got there. He tried to fix it but the carnies want and are comfortable with their circus.
Not every gm walks into situations like these. Not every gm has to deal with a melo type that gets everyone fired. Not every new gm is stuck with no rookies and no draft picks going forward.
See you just don't get it. It was really Melo's fault.
yellowboy90 wrote:fishmike wrote:Sinix wrote:Yea... Melo's fault. We get it.fishmike wrote:every GM that fails has these "things" happen to him. What makes GMs great is their ability to minimize these things and move forward. Every issue for Phil was a dramatic disaster. He failed to deliver on his promises for transparency for starters. He rarely communicated with the media and his use of twitter was idiotic. Phil made just enough mistakes to get himself chopped. There is very little more this this story than that.What I came away with is that the team and franchise was a circus before he got there. He tried to fix it but the carnies want and are comfortable with their circus.
Not every gm walks into situations like these. Not every gm has to deal with a melo type that gets everyone fired. Not every new gm is stuck with no rookies and no draft picks going forward.
See you just don't get it. It was really Melo's fault.
That post I made didn't even mention melo. Guys like him are just melo fan boys first.
Actually my point went beyond melo, that melo is more a symptom of a problem than the total underlining problem. We still gotta deal with the symptom though.
But nothing would change if we dropped melo and didn't change the overall culture of the Knicks. There's no firm leadership or vision in management.
Sinix wrote:yellowboy90 wrote:fishmike wrote:Sinix wrote:Yea... Melo's fault. We get it.fishmike wrote:every GM that fails has these "things" happen to him. What makes GMs great is their ability to minimize these things and move forward. Every issue for Phil was a dramatic disaster. He failed to deliver on his promises for transparency for starters. He rarely communicated with the media and his use of twitter was idiotic. Phil made just enough mistakes to get himself chopped. There is very little more this this story than that.What I came away with is that the team and franchise was a circus before he got there. He tried to fix it but the carnies want and are comfortable with their circus.
Not every gm walks into situations like these. Not every gm has to deal with a melo type that gets everyone fired. Not every new gm is stuck with no rookies and no draft picks going forward.
See you just don't get it. It was really Melo's fault.
That post I made didn't even mention melo. Guys like him are just melo fan boys first.
Actually my point went beyond melo, that melo is more a symptom of a problem than the total underlining problem. We still gotta deal with the symptom though.
But nothing would change if we dropped melo and didn't change the overall culture of the Knicks. There's no firm leadership or vision in management.
I agree with your assessment of this situation. Too bad other don't understand its depth.
Melo is not a team player and resistant to changing his game to improve the team. D'Antoni tried to get Melo to play team ball. Melo got D'Antoni fired. Phil fired. etc.
Phil had the right idea(s), just bad execution. Phil was held to an impossible standard.
Caseloads wrote:It is Melo's fault. And Phil's fault. Mainly Melo's fault though.Melo is not a team player and resistant to changing his game to improve the team. D'Antoni tried to get Melo to play team ball. Melo got D'Antoni fired. Phil fired. etc.
Phil had the right idea(s), just bad execution. Phil was held to an impossible standard.
What standard was Phil held to? Phil's front office was ranked in the bottom 2-3 for multiple years. He was the farthest thing from a grinder.
CrushAlot wrote:Caseloads wrote:It is Melo's fault. And Phil's fault. Mainly Melo's fault though.Melo is not a team player and resistant to changing his game to improve the team. D'Antoni tried to get Melo to play team ball. Melo got D'Antoni fired. Phil fired. etc.
Phil had the right idea(s), just bad execution. Phil was held to an impossible standard.
What standard was Phil held to? Phil's front office was ranked in the bottom 2-3 for multiple years. He was the farthest thing from a grinder.
I think most of the Knicks organization including Carmelo Anthony wanted to draft Mudiay. When you say Phil was at the bottom for multiple years you make it sound like he was here for ten years. He s been here only a tad longer than 3. You dont think for one second that Dolan didnt give orders to make it work with Anthony? So two years built on that--close to most of the time. But we still have some good young players
BRIGGS wrote:Phil wanted Okafor. There was no doubt about that. You thought e wanted Cauley Stein. Phil thought he had a competitive team his first year and they lost 20 more games then the previous year. I think Phil had autonomy. The fan/media noise from the KP feud/trade rumors, buying out Melo for close to 50 mil, resigning Rose, the Knicks being named the most undesirable place for nba players, the triangle, the public criticism of players etc. and all of the losing wasn't worth it. Not too hard to figure out. The guy wasn't good at hs job.CrushAlot wrote:Caseloads wrote:It is Melo's fault. And Phil's fault. Mainly Melo's fault though.Melo is not a team player and resistant to changing his game to improve the team. D'Antoni tried to get Melo to play team ball. Melo got D'Antoni fired. Phil fired. etc.
Phil had the right idea(s), just bad execution. Phil was held to an impossible standard.
What standard was Phil held to? Phil's front office was ranked in the bottom 2-3 for multiple years. He was the farthest thing from a grinder.I think most of the Knicks organization including Carmelo Anthony wanted to draft Mudiay. When you say Phil was at the bottom for multiple years you make it sound like he was here for ten years. He s been here only a tad longer than 3. You dont think for one second that Dolan didnt give orders to make it work with Anthony? So two years built on that--close to most of the time. But we still have some good young players
CrushAlot wrote:BRIGGS wrote:Phil wanted Okafor. There was no doubt about that. You thought e wanted Cauley Stein. Phil thought he had a competitive team his first year and they lost 20 more games then the previous year. I think Phil had autonomy. The fan/media noise from the KP feud/trade rumors, buying out Melo for close to 50 mil, resigning Rose, the Knicks being named the most undesirable place for nba players, the triangle, the public criticism of players etc. and all of the losing wasn't worth it. Not too hard to figure out. The guy wasn't good at hs job.CrushAlot wrote:Caseloads wrote:It is Melo's fault. And Phil's fault. Mainly Melo's fault though.Melo is not a team player and resistant to changing his game to improve the team. D'Antoni tried to get Melo to play team ball. Melo got D'Antoni fired. Phil fired. etc.
Phil had the right idea(s), just bad execution. Phil was held to an impossible standard.
What standard was Phil held to? Phil's front office was ranked in the bottom 2-3 for multiple years. He was the farthest thing from a grinder.I think most of the Knicks organization including Carmelo Anthony wanted to draft Mudiay. When you say Phil was at the bottom for multiple years you make it sound like he was here for ten years. He s been here only a tad longer than 3. You dont think for one second that Dolan didnt give orders to make it work with Anthony? So two years built on that--close to most of the time. But we still have some good young players
True.
And there are no GMs in the world to be good for what Knicks organization became.
Only egomaniacs, idiots, or combination of both can sign up to work with this mess.
And we already had all of this types running the team.
Can Doolan and Co find one more craze?
Jackson was in a tough spot, he could have handled it better but, ahem, his share of what's wrong with the Knicks is tiny. Until Dolan sells the Knicks, no one in Phil's spot is going to be able to make a go of it, any short term gain is illusory. At least the Knicks are in a marginally better spot than they were when Phil arrived. Maybe some day Dolan will come to his senses and sell the Knicks . . . and I'll be a Knicks fan again. Until then, well, I've really enjoyed watching Golden State over the last eight years :)
[Just an aside, an aside that has nothing to do with basketball but . . . One thing I liked about Jackson is that he's a real person with a life outside of basketball. His slim twitter feed is a mess but it's not just basketball and glamor, there are sincere links to friends who think and act and write on it. And, amazingly enough his books are pretty good, he's not a bad writer at all. I never mentioned it here but oddly enough Jackson showed up at two literary events I was involved in, two minor, somewhat esoteric, insidery, readings. Both times, he showed up to support a friend’s book and once he ended up reading from the friend’s book at some length. One event had an audience of maybe 6 people, the other maybe 100. They had nothing to do with basketball, one was a reading from a new novel, the other an anniversary event for a small publisher. Phil arrived alone, didn’t seem at all concerned that maybe two people recognized him, and he sat patiently through things like lengthy readings by French feminists from the 70s. He stuck around after and talked to people, not about basketball but about the readings. He seemed very much like a real person who was interested in literature, quite at home in a brainy crowd, and genuinely happy to be there. Who knows? Maybe he just needed a break from basketball? Maybe he just needed to be around people who weren’t going ask him about Melo? But whatever was going on, it was clear that Phil is an interesting guy with a real life outside of MSG. In my book, that’s as cool as it is unexpected. Maybe he should have been off scouting Euro leagues, maybe he should have been studying Kerr’s strategies at Golden State, maybe he should have coached the Knicks himself, I dunno. But, I doubt I’ll ever see another Knicks GM at a literary event in the future.]
CrushAlot wrote:Caseloads wrote:It is Melo's fault. And Phil's fault. Mainly Melo's fault though.Melo is not a team player and resistant to changing his game to improve the team. D'Antoni tried to get Melo to play team ball. Melo got D'Antoni fired. Phil fired. etc.
Phil had the right idea(s), just bad execution. Phil was held to an impossible standard.
What standard was Phil held to? Phil's front office was ranked in the bottom 2-3 for multiple years. He was the farthest thing from a grinder.
Bottom 2-3 every year yet somehow the Knicks are much better set up than when he came. Yet many franchises out there are in a worse position than 2-3 years ago.
TheGame wrote:It seemed to me that no one on the team liked the triangle, not just Melo. I know KP gave it his okay but he is so young what else was he going to do. The problem is you had pick and role guards trying to run an offense designed for a guy like Ron Harper at point.
The biggest problem for the triangle was having me-first personalities that wouldn't run it.
When melo is your leader and he is ignoring the game plan, it effects the rest of the team.
Fisher failing to run it during his tenure was a big problem too. His insubordination hurt as well.