It has come to the point of the Phil Jackson era at Madison Square Garden where even James Dolan must know that the celebrated and costly hire grades out to an error. To such a low point where one previously odious regime must now become part of the evaluation process, the qualitative standard by which Jackson can and should be judged.

Bad is bad, and Jackson’s Knicks have been Isiah Thomas bad.

In passing one another inside those hallowed but equally haunted Garden halls, do Jackson and Thomas wink at each other in sheepish acknowledgement of their epic failures in running a downtrodden and demoralized Knicks franchise? Three years in for Jackson, the comparative numbers don’t lie.

They actually favor Thomas, who co-habitats the building as president of the WNBA’s Liberty.

[Fill out your NCAA tournament bracket here | Printable version]

Thomas was hired by Dolan, the ever-blundering owner, in late December 2003, and seven games later reshaped the Knicks in his image with a blockbuster trade for Stephon Marbury. Post-deal, he owns the remainder of that season – a 28-25 run that concluded with a four-game sweep by the Nets in the first round – before two horrific seasons resulted in Dolan dismissively ordering Thomas to the bench to coach his mess, demanding “evident progress,” or else.

Jackson merely observed the final 15 games of the 2013-14 season after his hiring, a 10-5 spurt that fell short of the playoffs and concluded with the firing of coach Mike Woodson. Strike that from Jackson’s executive résumé and what you are left with, heading into Tuesday night’s game against the Pacers, is a 75-156 debacle, or nine wins short of Thomas’ 84 (against 133 losses), despite an additional 14 games.

With the understanding that Jackson’s reign has been no more stable or watchable than Thomas’, isn’t this where Dolan calls him into his office and tells him he can have a better seat for home games while offering him the opportunity to generate thousands of hotel club points to go along with his $12 million-a-year salary?

During his catastrophic public-relations attempt at cleaning up the Charles Oakley oil spill, Dolan went on record saying that Jackson’s job is safe for the remainder of his five-year contract. He never promised not to apply the same approach he took with Thomas. Now that another Jackson edition of the Knicks has essentially quit on its coach, and in no small part thanks to Jackson making Jeff Hornacek’s life untenable with his triangulation tactics, it would seem that Dolan has the perfect excuse to box Jackson in.

Isiah Thomas was forced to coach the Knicks in 2006. (AP)
Isiah Thomas was forced to coach the Knicks in 2006. (AP)
More
Coach or quit, an edict that would make far more sense than it did with Thomas, given Jackson’s record 11 coaching rings claimed in Chicago and Los Angeles, and his insistence of running an offense that he, alone, is totally committed to.

Not long ago, one legendary NBA coach was asked what he made of Jackson’s big-foot fiasco in New York, first experienced by Derek Fisher and now by Hornacek. Requesting anonymity less out of respect for Jackson and more because he wasn’t comfortable with public criticism, he sighed and said: “If you hire someone, let him do what he does best. If you want him to do what you do best, get your ass down there and do it yourself.”

Jackson, 71, has said he is physically incapable of the grinding travel involved in coaching. Fair enough. But the Knicks don’t work for him, he works for them. The current situation isn’t working for anyone.

Let’s take Dolan at his word that he doesn’t want to meddle anymore. Good for him. That doesn’t mean he can’t apply proprietary logic to presidential illogic.

What does Jackson think he is accomplishing – besides usurping his coach – with his occasional triangle clinics when he’s bound to turn over at least half his roster again next season? If he manages to persuade Carmelo Anthony to waive his no-trade clause and a rebuild finally begins in earnest, who better than Jackson to work daily with the cast of young players if his beloved triangle is going to be imbedded into their brains?

Go all in, or get out of the triangle business. If not out of town.

Understand that NBA teams do not travel like the rest of us. They charter in splendor. They don’t lug around bags. If Jackson needs an occasional trip off, basketball soul mate and current associate head coach Kurt Rambis could coach in his absence. With Anthony gone, along with the tensions created by the sands of his career hourglass slipping away, the focus would shift away from immediate gratification to the development of Kristaps Porzingis, Willy Hernangomez and the coming 2017 first-round pick. They would be too young and without leverage to resist.

In a recent interview, Pat Riley said, of President Jackson, “I think he can get that turned around. It just takes two or three moves.”

Could still happen. Or maybe Jackson was never suited to the conversion from Hall of Fame coach to front-office emperor. Riley was a career-prime 50 when he moved from coaching the Knicks to running the show and coaching in Miami. Maybe Jackson just waited too long, to a point in life where he has become too stubborn, set in his ways, operating in a bubble that doesn’t allow for conceptual change.

As Knicks president, he has alienated the New York media, the league’s best player (LeBron James) and his best player, Anthony, proving himself an equal-opportunity antagonist. Most disappointing for those who have known him longest is how little humility he has shown, how little in touch he seems to be with the old Albany Patroons coach, whose primary mid-1980s perk was driving the team van on the road because that seat provided extra leg room.

Now Jackson, who once threw his organizational superior, the great Jerry West, out of the Lakers’ locker room because “it has always been what I’ve done any time it got intimate or personal,” helicopters into Hornacek’s practice when the coach is desperately trying to hold onto his team.

A prideful, no-nonsense man, Hornacek knows he can’t win under these conditions any more than Fisher could. No one can. Which is why it’s time for Jackson to go all in, or get out.

Thomas inherited one coach, Don Chaney, and hired and fired Lenny Wilkens and Larry Brown. Jackson has done likewise with Woodson and Fisher, and seems to be doing his best to undermine Hornacek.

Thomas didn’t rate or get another hire. Based on Thomas’ record and his own, Jackson deserves to be treated by Dolan with the same disrespect.

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://twitter.com/HarveyAraton/status/841847161654509570

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:I bet the "players" that hate him are like Melo and Rose... SMDH! Can't wait for this season to be over so we can talk about who we might draft and sign this summer and if Melo waived his NTC!

The gist of the article is this.

Go all in, or get out of the triangle business. If not out of town.

Yeah I got that and it's nonsense to me. Phil just needs to ignore all the Media BS and be about his business in building this team. He's got a lot of opportunities in front of him and I hope it's a successful summer. Everything else is a distraction.

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:I bet the "players" that hate him are like Melo and Rose... SMDH! Can't wait for this season to be over so we can talk about who we might draft and sign this summer and if Melo waived his NTC!

The gist of the article is this.

Go all in, or get out of the triangle business. If not out of town.

Yeah I got that and it's nonsense to me. Phil just needs to ignore all the Media BS and be about his business in building this team. He's got a lot of opportunities in front of him and I hope it's a successful summer. Everything else is a distraction.

He needs to stop sabotaging coaches. He needs to work at being a gm. He needs to be working on making the team better by acquiring talent that fits with his coach's philosophy. Or he needs to coach. Araton has always presented as a Phil guy. He hates Melo. He was trashing Melo on twitter during the Nets game.

I loved the Hornacek hire. I was really excited about moving on from Rambis and when Phil went out and got Rose and Jennings I thought he was trying to buy into Jeff's philosophies. However, Rambis was put on Jeff's staff and his role continues to expand. In addition Phil is teaching the triangle in practices now. Jeff's authority with his team was sabotaged by Phil. If Phil wants triangle he needs to coach it. If he isn't going to coach it hire Rambis despite what all the players on the team said about him at the exit meetings. Rambis is the perfect tank coach. The Knicks get a top 5 pick in 18 if he coaches.

The coach thing is only a problem if Jeff sees it as a problem. If Jeff stays then I accept that he's on board with all of it.

The thing to focus on is what Phil does this summer. Is he moving away from the Melo Era or not? If I'm reading this right I believe he's done trying to cater to Melo's needs and desires. We need to focus on the draft and player development. All this other stuff is a media distraction of very little importance. If we draft we'll then the team should be on its way towards a new future.

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:I bet the "players" that hate him are like Melo and Rose... SMDH! Can't wait for this season to be over so we can talk about who we might draft and sign this summer and if Melo waived his NTC!

The gist of the article is this.

Go all in, or get out of the triangle business. If not out of town.

Yeah I got that and it's nonsense to me. Phil just needs to ignore all the Media BS and be about his business in building this team. He's got a lot of opportunities in front of him and I hope it's a successful summer. Everything else is a distraction.

He needs to stop sabotaging coaches. He needs to work at being a gm. He needs to be working on making the team better by acquiring talent that fits with his coach's philosophy. Or he needs to coach. Araton has always presented as a Phil guy. He hates Melo. He was trashing Melo on twitter during the Nets game.

I loved the Hornacek hire. I was really excited about moving on from Rambis and when Phil went out and got Rose and Jennings I thought he was trying to buy into Jeff's philosophies. However, Rambis was put on Jeff's staff and his role continues to expand. In addition Phil is teaching the triangle in practices now. Jeff's authority with his team was sabotaged by Phil. If Phil wants triangle he needs to coach it. If he isn't going to coach it hire Rambis despite what all the players on the team said about him at the exit meetings. Rambis is the perfect tank coach. The Knicks get a top 5 pick in 18 if he coaches.

The coach thing is only a problem if Jeff sees it as a problem. If Jeff stays then I accept that he's on board with all of it.

The thing to focus on is what Phil does this summer. Is he moving away from the Melo Era or not? If I'm reading this right I believe he's done trying to cater to Melo's needs and desires. We need to focus on the draft and player development. All this other stuff is a media distraction of very little importance. If we draft we'll then the team should be on its way towards a new future.

I never got the catering to Melo stuff. The Knicks have 6 rookies on their roster. I think Phil wanted to win and rebuild at the same time. You aren't catering to Melo if you bring in guys with injury histories like Rose, Noah and Jennings and then fill out the bench with undrafted rookies. Setting the roster up like that is a good way to get a role player or two for the future while having a team that could get into the playoffs if everything works. Sabotaging the coach, alienating and lowering the team's star player's trade value was all on Phil. In regards to Jeff being okay with how things are going, he has one of thirty head coach jobs in the nba. If he quits he doesn't get paid. I think he is a high character guy but I don't think he can just walk away from his job.

Come on man Phil clearly was trying to cater to Melo. Just cuz he didn't foolishly go ALL IN but rather made sure to also continue his future component doesn't prove he wasn't catering to Melo. Thank goodness he didn't sacrifice the future in an effort to win now.

IMO all that matters now is what happens this summer and there after. This is a big summer in deciding the direction of the team. As I've pointed out when Phil started with the Bulls he did not yet have mastery of the Triangle. Tex ran the offense. Eventually Phil mastered his understanding but they won all that time. Jeff is in the same situation now. Phil tweaked Tex's offense and Jeff will do the same.

CrushAlot wrote:Araton has always presented as a Phil guy. He hates Melo. He was trashing Melo on twitter during the Nets game.

IIRC, Araton was picked up by CAA. Creative Artist Agency is the most powerful representation company in the entire free world.

Here's an example. When tight end Jimmy Graham was at a contract stalemate with New Orleans, Adam Schefter, the NFL super insider, started coming out with blurbs about interest in Graham from other teams. And that if the Saints didn't want to pay him, someone would. Adam Schefter is now technically a celebrity insider, so who represents him? CAA. Who represents Graham? CAA.

Joe Dumars and Wojo in the NBA were often linked at the hip. It's not that uncommon. Give me a story to run, some inside dirt, and I'll frame the narrative the way you want it.

If Araton is trashing Melo, it's a soft cover to not make it so obvious that he's probably saying whatever Leon Rose is telling him to say.

This is a game of chicken. For Phil Jackson to stay, Melo has to go. For Melo to stay, Phil Jackson has to go. Dolan seems to not care and will force both to stay. It's ugly and both sides will keep feeding the press in a frenzy to get the other jettisoned. This is the problem with you have three elements ( Dolan, Jackson, Melo) with three different agendas, none of which are making winning basketball games the first and only and most important thing.

Headlines matter because people are sheep. They are weak, brutal and easily led.

CrushAlot wrote:

It has come to the point of the Phil Jackson era at Madison Square Garden where even James Dolan must know that the celebrated and costly hire grades out to an error. To such a low point where one previously odious regime must now become part of the evaluation process, the qualitative standard by which Jackson can and should be judged.

Bad is bad, and Jackson’s Knicks have been Isiah Thomas bad.

In passing one another inside those hallowed but equally haunted Garden halls, do Jackson and Thomas wink at each other in sheepish acknowledgement of their epic failures in running a downtrodden and demoralized Knicks franchise? Three years in for Jackson, the comparative numbers don’t lie.

They actually favor Thomas, who co-habitats the building as president of the WNBA’s Liberty.

[Fill out your NCAA tournament bracket here | Printable version]

Thomas was hired by Dolan, the ever-blundering owner, in late December 2003, and seven games later reshaped the Knicks in his image with a blockbuster trade for Stephon Marbury. Post-deal, he owns the remainder of that season – a 28-25 run that concluded with a four-game sweep by the Nets in the first round – before two horrific seasons resulted in Dolan dismissively ordering Thomas to the bench to coach his mess, demanding “evident progress,” or else.

Jackson merely observed the final 15 games of the 2013-14 season after his hiring, a 10-5 spurt that fell short of the playoffs and concluded with the firing of coach Mike Woodson. Strike that from Jackson’s executive résumé and what you are left with, heading into Tuesday night’s game against the Pacers, is a 75-156 debacle, or nine wins short of Thomas’ 84 (against 133 losses), despite an additional 14 games.

With the understanding that Jackson’s reign has been no more stable or watchable than Thomas’, isn’t this where Dolan calls him into his office and tells him he can have a better seat for home games while offering him the opportunity to generate thousands of hotel club points to go along with his $12 million-a-year salary?

During his catastrophic public-relations attempt at cleaning up the Charles Oakley oil spill, Dolan went on record saying that Jackson’s job is safe for the remainder of his five-year contract. He never promised not to apply the same approach he took with Thomas. Now that another Jackson edition of the Knicks has essentially quit on its coach, and in no small part thanks to Jackson making Jeff Hornacek’s life untenable with his triangulation tactics, it would seem that Dolan has the perfect excuse to box Jackson in.

Isiah Thomas was forced to coach the Knicks in 2006. (AP)
Isiah Thomas was forced to coach the Knicks in 2006. (AP)
More
Coach or quit, an edict that would make far more sense than it did with Thomas, given Jackson’s record 11 coaching rings claimed in Chicago and Los Angeles, and his insistence of running an offense that he, alone, is totally committed to.

Not long ago, one legendary NBA coach was asked what he made of Jackson’s big-foot fiasco in New York, first experienced by Derek Fisher and now by Hornacek. Requesting anonymity less out of respect for Jackson and more because he wasn’t comfortable with public criticism, he sighed and said: “If you hire someone, let him do what he does best. If you want him to do what you do best, get your ass down there and do it yourself.”

Jackson, 71, has said he is physically incapable of the grinding travel involved in coaching. Fair enough. But the Knicks don’t work for him, he works for them. The current situation isn’t working for anyone.

Let’s take Dolan at his word that he doesn’t want to meddle anymore. Good for him. That doesn’t mean he can’t apply proprietary logic to presidential illogic.

What does Jackson think he is accomplishing – besides usurping his coach – with his occasional triangle clinics when he’s bound to turn over at least half his roster again next season? If he manages to persuade Carmelo Anthony to waive his no-trade clause and a rebuild finally begins in earnest, who better than Jackson to work daily with the cast of young players if his beloved triangle is going to be imbedded into their brains?

Go all in, or get out of the triangle business. If not out of town.

Understand that NBA teams do not travel like the rest of us. They charter in splendor. They don’t lug around bags. If Jackson needs an occasional trip off, basketball soul mate and current associate head coach Kurt Rambis could coach in his absence. With Anthony gone, along with the tensions created by the sands of his career hourglass slipping away, the focus would shift away from immediate gratification to the development of Kristaps Porzingis, Willy Hernangomez and the coming 2017 first-round pick. They would be too young and without leverage to resist.

In a recent interview, Pat Riley said, of President Jackson, “I think he can get that turned around. It just takes two or three moves.”

Could still happen. Or maybe Jackson was never suited to the conversion from Hall of Fame coach to front-office emperor. Riley was a career-prime 50 when he moved from coaching the Knicks to running the show and coaching in Miami. Maybe Jackson just waited too long, to a point in life where he has become too stubborn, set in his ways, operating in a bubble that doesn’t allow for conceptual change.

As Knicks president, he has alienated the New York media, the league’s best player (LeBron James) and his best player, Anthony, proving himself an equal-opportunity antagonist. Most disappointing for those who have known him longest is how little humility he has shown, how little in touch he seems to be with the old Albany Patroons coach, whose primary mid-1980s perk was driving the team van on the road because that seat provided extra leg room.

Now Jackson, who once threw his organizational superior, the great Jerry West, out of the Lakers’ locker room because “it has always been what I’ve done any time it got intimate or personal,” helicopters into Hornacek’s practice when the coach is desperately trying to hold onto his team.

A prideful, no-nonsense man, Hornacek knows he can’t win under these conditions any more than Fisher could. No one can. Which is why it’s time for Jackson to go all in, or get out.

Thomas inherited one coach, Don Chaney, and hired and fired Lenny Wilkens and Larry Brown. Jackson has done likewise with Woodson and Fisher, and seems to be doing his best to undermine Hornacek.

Thomas didn’t rate or get another hire. Based on Thomas’ record and his own, Jackson deserves to be treated by Dolan with the same disrespect.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/its-time-for-phil-jackson-to-go-all-in-or-leave-the-knicks-202000403.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw

I can't believe that there are honestly still people in denial that we have to rebuild via the draft and that this requires losing for a few years. Why is it so hard a concept to understand? Why would we want Phil to coach? What purpose would it serve? Would you rather he was fired and replaced by someone who doesn't want to rebuild via the draft?

Go ahead analysts have a look. How would Golden State, Cleveland, Clippers, Thunder, been without draft picks?
Every good team in the league right now had to go through a few years of losing and the reward was draft picks.

We got that reward in 2015, but in 2014 and 2016 we couldn't. Not Phil's fault. This franchise is completely in a different position if they draft in 2014 and 2016. Not a single good team in the league can become good without a few lottery or good picks.

Golden State drafted Curry/Thompson in the lottery
Cleveland drafted Irving, then drafted Wiggins/Bennett traded them to Minnesota, also drafted Thompson in the lottery.

You won't be a good team if in 3 years you only have one first round pick. Atleast we got KP out of that, We easily could have screwed that up and drafted the next Mudiay, Hezonja or Winslow. We made a great choice.

The Knicks have to be patient, draft well in 2017. Try to trade Melo for more young assets. Rebuild. It will look much better in 2 years from now if Phil stays patient and keep doing what he is. Only this time with actual draft picks to work with, Develop them in the system.

Phil's made mistakes. I rate him as an ok executive. He is not Isiah bad though. He isn't even as bad as Walsh was, because Walsh made many bad longterm hurting moves (Although Dolan may have influenced there).

Phil may have gotten the Knicks the 2nd best rookie last year and the 2nd best rookie this year. If we keep drafting well, in 2 years the franchise will be in a very good place. We took some short term riks and all have backfired. Nothing has worked in the short term. However longrun we look good. Now it's time to put together a good Melo trade. Sort of like what the Celtics did with Paul Pierce/KG when they began their rebuild.