The thing about Smith, he doesn't understand Phil Jackson. And this burns him. He thought Phil is the sort of guy, who'd always go for the big names, sort of like what you saw the Lakers do. Instead, Phil has gone for unknown below the radar types, with a high level of fitting into what he wants to see his teams do on O/D. Porzingis was the guy with the highest ceiling in this regard, and guys like Quinn the lowest. Yet all of Phil's moves dating back to trading Smith/Shump last year and bringing in Calderon even, have had a purpose. Without the sort of team NY has today, Porzingis does not have a role. They've helped put him in position to succeed and to his credit he's blown away people. Even the Sasha signing which was laughable because Sasha does not belong in the league, has meant a veteran who has taken to Porzingis and given him great support. These things are instrumental in building a young player into a star, a star that can win games for you that is.
SAS wants major names and Phil's record as a winner to draw them in. But he's overlooking NY has done this for decades. This is arguably the first decent team we've had in a long time that doesn't have too many names on it. You have Melo, but that's it. The rest of the guys are relatively low key guys, and Porzingis' emerging play has created hype for him. But we're not supposed to be any good - most people would think a team like the Knicks would do better than 25 wins in a season. Yet they're on pace to win between 35-40, which is solid.
That's where it all goes back to NY history. Trading for Marbury. Trading too much for Melo. Trading for Eddy Curry. Trading for any and every name that was out there. The parts didn't fit and the players didn't play together. Phil is doing it a different way. He's got C level talent around Melo/Porzingis, but he believes they'll play together. He believes that Porzingis can grow and improve and hopes Melo improves as a team player. Then with FA and capspace potentially in 2016 AND 2017, the Knicks can keep adding talent. To eventually possibly making a strong run 2 years from now. Of course SAS and guys like him have no patience for that, and think the old school Knicks way which is get me every big name possible. He liked Winslow because of name recognition. Mudiay? He's been horrendous, yet SAS loved him, name recognition. He wanted guys who were recognized. He's thinking inside a box, and a mindset that has seen the Knicks be mediocre for a long, long time.
If you look at it clearly, if Porzingis was on the type of team that was full of shoot first players running a system geared towards guy calling their own number, or one player dominating the ball a lot, his play wouldn't be what it is. His energy would have been less. Phil's biggest tribute hasn't been that he drafted Porzingis. It's that he drafted AND put the sort of support group around him where the guy could give you that extra gear right away.
12/18/2015 4:20 PM