I enjoyed this article. The trade deadline was mute for us because of what was going on. SOme other nuggests of information. Is a Melo Free zone as well.
Via NY Times......
James L. Dolan, the owner of the New York Knicks, was riding an all-terrain vehicle near Palm Springs, Calif. It was March 2, and the Knicks were in Chicago for another blowout loss in a season full of them — on national television, no less.
A desperate search for solutions had taken Mr. Dolan into the desert, where he was joined by Steve Mills, then the team’s president and general manager; a guide; and a fourth member of their party, who was suddenly missing. One minute, they were zigzagging over dusty trails in their ATVs. Then, Mr. Dolan looked back. No one was there. “We lost Phil,” he said.
Phil Jackson, the celebrated coach and famed free spirit, had taken his own path. He eventually caught up with the group, and they retreated to the Madison Club, an exclusive community in La Quinta, Calif., to continue their bonding weekend.
Irving Azoff at Tuesday’s news conference. He brought Dolan and Jackson together three months ago. Credit Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
Mr. Dolan, a famously hands-on and tight-lipped owner, was handing over the reins (at least for now). And he was talking about it publicly, at the news conference and in a subsequent interview with The New York Times in Suite 200, the V.I.P. restaurant tucked discreetly within the Garden.
“You called me after Palm Springs and said, ‘O.K., we’re done,’ ” Mr. Dolan said during the interview, turning to his friend and business partner Irving Azoff, an entertainment industry executive who had served as matchmaker for Mr. Dolan and Mr. Jackson.
“Getting somebody like Phil Jackson to come in and build the team is sort of like getting Einstein to help you with your math homework,” Mr. Dolan said.
During the interview, Mr. Dolan reconstructed his courtship of Mr. Jackson — and reiterated that he had given Mr. Jackson full autonomy to make the Knicks’ basketball-related decisions. As evidence, he mentioned how earlier in the day he had seen Mr. Jackson and Mr. Mills discussing what they should do with two players who were on 10-day contracts with the team.
“And I walked over and said: ‘You know what? I don’t need to know,’ ” Mr. Dolan recalled. “ ‘Just tell me what you all decide.’ ”
He added: “They’re going to come in, and they’re going to tell me what they want to do. They’re going to tell me how much it costs, and I’m going to say yes — assuming it doesn’t bankrupt the company. I don’t think they’ll come in with a bankrupt-the-company scenario, but I’ve told them that I’m willing to spend. We need a championship here.”
The courtship began three months ago, according to Mr. Dolan’s and Mr. Azoff’s accounting. After years of watching his wife organize a party for friends that she called “Just Us Girls,” Mr. Azoff wanted to throw one of his own. So he invited about 150 of his male friends to his home in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles, including actors (Larry David), television executives (Les Moonves) and musicians (at least three members of the Eagles). Also on the guest list: Mr. Jackson and Mr. Dolan.
Mr. Azoff said that his wife, Shelli, and the actress Chelsea Handler were the only women who attended.
Mr. Dolan knew that Mr. Jackson would be there. He said they had met only once, last year at the 4oth anniversary celebration of the Knicks’ last N.B.A. title at the Garden. (When the team previously pursued Mr. Jackson for its head-coaching position, the front-office executives Dave Checketts and Isiah Thomas were the envoys from the Knicks who gauged his interest, Mr. Dolan said.)
At Mr. Azoff’s party, Mr. Dolan sought out Mr. Jackson. The Knicks were plummeting to the depths of the Eastern Conference, struggles that had caught Mr. Dolan by surprise, he said. The team was coming off a 54-win season, after all. But whatever chemistry that had kept that unit together was failing amid a flurry of injuries and late-game blunders.
Mr. Dolan, 58, and Mr. Jackson, 68, retreated to a small downstairs office, away from the other partygoers. Mr. Dolan asked Mr. Jackson if he was interested in coaching. Mr. Jackson told him that he was not.
“I kind of knew from Irving that it wasn’t on the table,” Mr. Dolan said. “But you have to ask. And so I did.”
They kept talking, Mr. Dolan said, for close to two hours. Mr. Dolan described it as a “primer on basketball.” Mr. Jackson laid out some of his philosophies, with Mr. Dolan absorbing as much as he could. (“He talked about the seven something-or-other things of offense,” Mr. Dolan said, noting that he was impressed by Mr. Jackson’s technical expertise.) Mr. Jackson and Mr. Dolan wound up missing the ****tail hour — dinner, too. They made plans to get together again after the holidays.
As the courtship continued, everyone agreed it should not play out in New York. Mr. Jackson, 6 feet 8 inches and widely recognizable, would be spotted, and their plan would be exposed. So the second meeting, in January, was in Marina del Rey, Calif., not far from Mr. Jackson’s home. After originally planning to meet at a hotel, Mr. Jackson worried that it was too conspicuous, so they went to Jerry’s Famous Deli instead. It was around this time that Mr. Jackson was seeking assurances about his role. He wanted autonomy.
After what Mr. Dolan described as another productive conversation, he thought it was time to involve another member of the organization: Mr. Mills, whom Mr. Dolan dispatched to Los Angeles the next Monday so he could sit down with Mr. Jackson.
“Because Steve knows the whole operation, has all the depth charts and knows all the contracts,” Mr. Dolan said. “I couldn’t talk through that stuff. I also wanted to see if they could work together.”
Over the coming weeks, the three men continued to communicate over the phone and by email. It was clear, Mr. Dolan said, that a deal was imminent. Mr. Jackson was already becoming involved in the team’s decision-making process. Mr. Dolan said he sought Mr. Jackson’s approval on several deals the team tried to make as the Feb. 20 trade deadline loomed. Mr. Dolan, declining to elaborate on the deals, said he was reluctant to make a move that would hinder Mr. Jackson’s long-term strategy.
“If it was a trade that didn’t fit what he was thinking — and I couldn’t tell you the specifics of what he was thinking, but I knew he had a plan,” Mr. Dolan said. “I believed he was coming on board, and I felt I should consult him.”
Their next meeting was in Dallas on Feb. 21, the day after the Eagles played a show there. (Mr. Azoff is the band’s longtime manager.)
Mr. Azoff invited Mr. Jackson, Mr. Mills and Mr. Dolan to his suite at the nearby Four Seasons resort, where they spoke for “hours and hours and hours,” Mr. Azoff said. Afterward, Mr. Jackson left for Los Angeles, Mr. Mills and Mr. Dolan returned to New York, and Mr. Azoff began to work on a contract.
Mr. Azoff soon invited Todd and Brian Musburger, Mr. Jackson’s agents, to his office in Los Angeles, where it took them 30 minutes to draft a contract, Mr. Azoff said. Mr. Dolan said he wrote one line of it, but he declined to say specifically what that line was.
“Let me tell you what I tell everyone who was involved: This is not going to be about a contract,” Mr. Dolan said. “This is going to be about a relationship. We can write anything we want in the contract. But in the end, what will make this a success is the relationship. And what will make this a failure is the relationship. And so that’s what we’re going to work on.”
Even before the contract was finished, they decided to have a buddy weekend in California. Mr. Jackson put together the itinerary. On March 1, Mr. Dolan and Mr. Mills traveled to Boston in Mr. Dolan’s private jet to retrieve Mr. Jackson and Jeanie Buss, his fiancée and the president of the Lakers, both of whom had appeared at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They then flew to Palm Springs, where the three men disembarked. (Ms. Buss continued on to Los Angeles.)
On Saturday, they watched basketball on television. On Sunday, they rode ATVs in the desert. They dined at Arnold Palmer’s Restaurant in La Quinta. Mr. Jackson talked about his vision. Less than three weeks later, he made his return to the Knicks official by signing a five-year contract.
Mr. Dolan, who has been notoriously meddlesome during his 15-year tenure as owner, said he was glad to have someone else making the decisions. He wants to devote more time to his other business interests, he said.
“This is a much more appropriate position for me,” he said.
On Monday night, shortly after he arrived in New York, Mr. Jackson joined Mr. Azoff, Mr. Dolan and Glenn Frey of the Eagles for dinner at Rotisserie Georgette, on East 60th Street in Manhattan. It was the night before the news conference, and they were still trying to keep their cover.
“We literally ate in the kitchen,” Mr. Dolan said.
