Jason Smith, Cleanthony Early, Quincy Acy, Travis Outlaw, Shane Larkin, and Thanasis....

All these guys are very similar in that they all can shoot, drive and finish well. They all are selfless team oriented players. They all bring their own energy and are hard workers.

This is the start of the culture change Phil is trying to instill. None of the names are household names, but collectively they should ignite a fire in practice and in games that should rub off on the other players.

I think Phil is still trying to make a trade to add to this formula before the season starts.

Will JR Smith listen?

StarksEwing1 wrote:Im very hapy with what Phil has done so far especiall without many resources to work with. I think we are going in the right direction. This year probably wont yield geat results but we will be going in a better direction and in 2015 we could be a contender with all the cap space we will have

NYKBocker wrote:

misterearl wrote:enyspree - excellent point. One might wonder if the infusion of fresh talent will make them more responsible than the holdovers, for carrying the orange and blue torch.

Will JR Smith listen?

Hopefully BCT can ship out JR.

JR's value is higher than his return....Plus his salary is lower than what he would've received in the open market. With Fisher and Phil on board, JR is the least of our problem. Nobody will give us close to fair value for JR, so might as well root for him to return back to the 6th man of the year JR. Also, Dolan has an under the table contract with the Smith family for taken in his brother, while paying JR below his market value. He's here until his contract ends.....

Our energy should be focused on moving Amari and Bargs.....Thats the real bottleneck...not JR!

yellowboy90 wrote:Travis outlaw can shoot but the problem is that he misses most of his shots

this made me chuckle

EnySpree wrote:One thing is for certain, Phil likes guys good character guys, high motors with good basketball fundamentals.

Jason Smith, Cleanthony Early, Quincy Acy, Travis Outlaw, Shane Larkin, and Thanasis....

All these guys are very similar in that they all can shoot, drive and finish well. They all are selfless team oriented players. They all bring their own energy and are hard workers.

This is the start of the culture change Phil is trying to instill. None of the names are household names, but collectively they should ignite a fire in practice and in games that should rub off on the other players.

I think Phil is still trying to make a trade to add to this formula before the season starts.

So every hold over gets a clean slate?

knicks1248 wrote:

EnySpree wrote:One thing is for certain, Phil likes guys good character guys, high motors with good basketball fundamentals.

Jason Smith, Cleanthony Early, Quincy Acy, Travis Outlaw, Shane Larkin, and Thanasis....

All these guys are very similar in that they all can shoot, drive and finish well. They all are selfless team oriented players. They all bring their own energy and are hard workers.

This is the start of the culture change Phil is trying to instill. None of the names are household names, but collectively they should ignite a fire in practice and in games that should rub off on the other players.

I think Phil is still trying to make a trade to add to this formula before the season starts.

So every hold over gets a clean slate?

Is that what hooked on phonics did for you?

EnySpree wrote:One thing is for certain, Phil likes guys good character guys, high motors with good basketball fundamentals.

Jason Smith, Cleanthony Early, Quincy Acy, Travis Outlaw, Shane Larkin, and Thanasis....

All these guys are very similar in that they all can shoot, drive and finish well. They all are selfless team oriented players. They all bring their own energy and are hard workers.

This is the start of the culture change Phil is trying to instill. None of the names are household names, but collectively they should ignite a fire in practice and in games that should rub off on the other players.

I think Phil is still trying to make a trade to add to this formula before the season starts.

I'm utterly amused by Knicks fans who fully believe that Phil Jackson is waving some kind of magic wand, some kind of deep Harry Potter type magic, hoping Jackson will impart some magical basketball wisdom on the Knicks after he dumps the One Ring into the fiery pit of Mordor and Mount Doom.

How hard was Jackson's job this offseason?

He had zero cap space. He had no draft picks. He had almost no viable trade assets. He had no emerging hot young player on a rookie contract who was vastly outperforming said contract as a viable trade chip or future asset.

He traded the one possible trade asset he had ( Tyson Chandler, a rim protecting center, in a league where 7 footers who can defend always have value) into a bunch of smaller lottery tickets.

He told his one elite free agent that he could take less and help build the team or go out into free agency and take a massive pay cut to play for a contender. Or he could wait, take close to max money, not have to uproot his family and see what happens.

He refused to mortgage future assets ( picks), where their general valuation is rising, for short term gains.

Dolan paid 50-60 million for a job that someone could have done for under a million a year to do.

Sam Presti
Daryl Morey
Rob Hennigan
Sam Hinkie
Masai Ujiri
Rick Cho
Bob Myers
Ryan McDonough

Over the years, there was LOTS of good available front office talent available to the Knicks. All those guys at some point would not have cost 60 million to bring aboard and make good front office decisions. Only Dolan would pay out the nose for what other teams are paying peanuts for, for basically following league trends.

Phil Jackson is not waving a magic wand, he's just following league trends. Better analytics, better coaching, better ways to use film and the D League and stronger push into access into international markets and leagues and players have made it much more desirable to reach out for the more efficient generic name player than the formerly "name brand" low cost asset.

In the past, teams would have been racing to grab a Rashard Lewis or Juwan Howard or Jerry Stackhouse to fill out their bench. Now teams, esp struggling teams, see the massive value in having open roster space to give players who are being mined by better analytics an opportunity to shine.

It's not just the Knicks and Phil Jackson, it's all progressive teams.

Look at Danny Ferry in Atlanta. Dumped that huge and horrible Joe Johnson contract. Didn't overpay for Josh Smith. Got Millsap for peanuts. Got Bazemore for almost nothing. Has slow but steadily built up a pretty good team with flexibility.

All progressive teams with good front offices like good character guys who push hard and have strong fundamental play and are team oriented.

Phil Jackson isn't waving a magic wand. James Dolan paid 50-60 million simply to get a guy with enough swag to gut check his own ego. That's not a genius decision. The list of GM's above, most of them had been trained and groomed to be GMs in the NBA.

I think Jackson is moving the Knicks in a good direction, but I think a big handful of other league executives could have done the same thing. I bet there are a dozen assistant GMs in the league who could have done the exact same thing.

If Melo needs to see 11 ring swag to stay in New York, so he can keep mugging for his reality show, that doesn't make Phil Jackson smart, that makes Carmelo Anthony to be pretty stupid. Then again Melo was always kind of stupid, it takes real stupid to think he could have constructed a Big Three with Chris Paul with Landry Fields as a headliner trade piece and no cap space and other assets after he choked out the teams cupboard to make sure he got a max deal before the new CBA went into effect.

Phil Jackson isn't the messiah. He's just smarter than James Dolan and Melo. But how hard is that? However he's not some secret braintrust above and beyond a lot of good front office talent out there.