We all know that Phil intended to have this team make the playoffs. He tried to give it a go and it didn't work. Even still he wasn't married to the players on this roster and there were going to be changes, just that he hoped there would be FEWER changes and some success this year that he could use to help him lure FA's. Now none of that matters cuz he's taking a different approach and this plan B is something he's talked about since the trade.
I don't see how anything I said was in any way controversial. It was as Crush said, pretty vanilla. No rah rah stuff, just a simple statement of the facts. Phil was from the very start looking to build sustainability but also to try and improve the team for the present. Phil has said that he wants to protect the teams future.
Phil on trades while protecting cap: "What we have to do is protect our future." "We obviously are solicitous of our draft pick."
On the possibility of making a trade, Phil Jackson says he wants to maintain future flexibility and would only deal for a long-term fit.
Now, he said, it is time to restart. “The reality is this is probably the best way to go about this business,” Jackson said.He added: “To begin, to restart, to do it the right way, and put it together in a way that makes sense. We hope we’re on the right track, even though this is not the track that we anticipated.”
Are there additional moves to come? Jackson said yes. He said he would like to bring “five or six” new players to the team for next season, and he indicated that the team could be active over the next month. He wants players the Knicks can build with. He said that New York remained a destination and that he believed free agents still wanted to come here.
With regard to the coming Free Agency Phil has been hinting at his possible approach.
Phil says NY hasnt been successful at luring stars to NY for decades. Understands many fans want that, but says it may make more sense to build a team in piecemeal fashion. Says it hasn't been done that way in NY before, but says this is the right time.
"We're all worried about the fact that money is not going to just be able to buy you necessary talent. You're going to have to have places where people want to come and play," said Jackson, who signed a five-year contract worth a reported $60 million last March to serve as team president. "But I do think that New York situation holds a high regard in players and agents that have contacted us. We have no lack of agents that have contacted us for their players. We still think that we have a really good chance to develop a team."
Nothing i've seen so far from Phil suggests he's gonna go into some kind of panic mode and repeat the mistakes of the past. He's well aware of those mistakes and to me it seems pretty clear he doesn't intend to do the exact same thing. People can get nasty with me for my usually positive take, but that doesn't mean it isn't founded in fact and backed up by some evidence provided by Phil himself. Just looking at the young players he's trying to add as well as vets it seems clear that it's a dual approach and not just win now at any cost approach. Don't understand the panic, negativity and assumption that it's the same old Knicks Star Search, sacrificing the future for the present. Nothing Phil's said suggests that.
2/2/2015 3:52 PM
