TripleThreat wrote:nixluva wrote: I want to see what Phil does this summer.
Historically, in modern sports history, this proves to be a mistake. If the guy in place is not your long term guy, you ax him and do it fast. All of the pro sports are littered with test cases of lame duck GMs and coaches with GM powers who have made deals , bad ones, in terms of personnel, to try to save their jobs. Short term moves that will hurt the franchise long term, but the decision maker in place does not care, there's a 99 percent chance they will be gone forever by then.
The Magic were a test case, Dwight Howard was on the verge of leaving and Otis Smith was under the gun to do something, do anything, then made a series of bad trades to try to appease Howard and built somewhat of a contender. Under pressure, they moved Gortat for literally nothing at the time, violating most of the basic trade maxims in the league ( never trade big for small, young for old, healthy for injured, etc, etc)
You see the negative effects even right now. Lee, Rose and Noah were short term moves. They will hurt long term, but Jackson is considering his personal legacy and wanting to at least say he got the Knicks to the playoffs, even as an 8th seed in a weakened East that is nothing better than a mediocre treadmill team.
As for Dolan, sports history confirms you can win with a corrupt owner, an idiot owner, a racist owner, a criminal owner, etc, etc. All he has to do is sign the checks, hire at least ONE right person to run the franchise and get out of the way.
As for Jackson, you don't fire a legacy like Jackson, esp one with a NY Knicks legacy. You cite health reasons and transfer him to a "special advisor role", one much like Jerry West has with the Warriors, more of a ceremonial role, and give him his paychecks and let him soft retire. You hire a young up and coming GM to actually run the team. In order to do this, you have to get Melo off the roster as well, same time or first. So as to not lend the appearance that a player won a power struggle over the good of the franchise. ( This is why the Jazz correctly dumped Deron Williams immediately when he drove Jerry Sloan insane and into retirement)
The benefit of a "no name" young GM is they don't have a legacy to protect. They aren't going to short term think about the next season at the cost of the next 10. I keep hearing that Jackson doesn't trade away picks. Well he clearly doesn't talk to other GMs ( Please do not push the Steve Mills is the 'worker' GM role in the franchise, if you are the ultimate decision maker and you don't actually talk to people or do any scouting of your own, something is very very wrong) How hard is it to not gut your draft assets if you never talk to anyone?
I say it again and again, a functional rebuild from where the Knicks currently stand is NOT THAT HARD. The basic blueprint given the talent scarcity and limited personnel moves in the league almost force teams into a very specific path in an early rebuild. And yet the Knicks make it insanely harder than it ever has to be. It might not pan out the way everyone hopes ( there's a difference between a guarantee of result and a guarantee of opportunity) but it's giving the franchise the best chance for the future.
There is some low level intern on the Spurs or Warriors back end front office who could literally do a better job right now than Phil Jackson running the Knicks. At least that kid is watching game tape and building networks and engaging with players around the league to better understand the current NBA marketplace. Every dollar Dolan gave Jackson was literally setting money on fire.
For this franchise to move forward, Jackson AND Melo need to go. Anyone here really want him to have access to giving out another crappy four year deal or two before someone finally takes away his golden pen of power with the franchise?
There's a lot of good stuff in this post. My one disagreement is I don't think dumping Phil is the answer. I get that he's the lightening rod of criticism because expectations were high. Who wouldn't want a Knicks dynasty and he's the closest hope we've had for one in 40+ years.
However, we need to keep in mind, he's the president and in that regard was supposed to be more in line with West's special advisor role. Insisting on a structure and a vision -- what type of player (e.g., length and skilled, even if less explosive), what type of system on the floor, what type of institution, how do we create and fill a pipeline of talent. People can caste him as lazy or whatever, but name another president who gets into practices and tries to instruct. He's damned if he does (that's meddling with the coach) and he's damned if he doesn't (just collecting Dolan's checks)
The person getting the pass is our GM who as far as I can tell does nothing but is supposed to have connections (though not sure we have seen one iota of benefit from that). I'd love for someone to correct me of this misimpression and explain how Mills contributes (you can add Allan Houston for extra credit).
My suggestion would be we upgrade the GM role with better assistants or even replacements.
In the Phil era, there has been one legitimate criticism and two borderline legitimate one: (legitimate) His FA signings are a C at best. He has done a good-great job w lower tier players (e.g., Oquinn) but mostly missed on the sexier picks (noah, rose). (borderline) His trades are suspect. People can reasonably complain whether we got fair value for JR, or Chandler etc. The reason I put this in borderline is I think there were other motives, e.g., shedding perceived cancers. (borderline) whether it was fully to attempt the competitive rebuild, i.e., try and put people around Melo while at the same time building/drafting youth. Hindsight is 20-20 and we now see that is too fine a tight rope. You're either in it to win it at the moment (e.g., trade KP for other vets to surround Melo -- booo), or youre building to win in the near future (e.g., as GS eventually ages)
4/5/2017 8:45 PM
