But: leaving that aside, I'm back to the fact that it's all
Triangle in the future . . . or nothing. If you want to wait
another 5 to 10 years to see Knicks competitive, then argue
against Jackson and the Triangle -- because if he fails, the
Knicks go back to square one.

What Jackson's Triangle seminar reminded me about . . . is
that people GROSSLY underestimate what it takes to get it
running.

The Knicks claim to have been running it for past 2 years.

How is that possible if Jackson feels obliged to have a
Triangle seminar . . . to teach BASIC Triangle footwork (?)

Obviously, there's been a massive screwup here -- presumably
having to do with Fisher.

So if we are running the Triangle, we got to get it right.

Like . . . soon.

That's why I think it's got to be Rambis as the head coach.

Even if the roster stays the same, you gotta teach and practice
and play the Triangle . . . 24/7 next year.

You can't mess with a Triangle-ignorant coach -- there's no
time (and maybe not the energy) to do that now . . .

Malcolm wrote:First: my confidence in Phil Jackson's judgment took a big
hit with the Fisher hiring and firing debacle. Even if it's
understandable , Jackson has to take the responsibility
for that -- including loss of confidence in his judgment.

But: leaving that aside, I'm back to the fact that it's all
Triangle in the future . . . or nothing. If you want to wait
another 5 to 10 years to see Knicks competitive, then argue
against Jackson and the Triangle -- because if he fails, the
Knicks go back to square one.

What Jackson's Triangle seminar reminded me about . . . is
that people GROSSLY underestimate what it takes to get it
running.

The Knicks claim to have been running it for past 2 years.

How is that possible if Jackson feels obliged to have a
Triangle seminar . . . to teach BASIC Triangle footwork (?)

Obviously, there's been a massive screwup here -- presumably
having to do with Fisher.

So if we are running the Triangle, we got to get it right.

Like . . . soon.

That's why I think it's got to be Rambis as the head coach.

Even if the roster stays the same, you gotta teach and practice
and play the Triangle . . . 24/7 next year.

You can't mess with a Triangle-ignorant coach -- there's no
time (and maybe not the energy) to do that now . . .

Lopez should be an enlightening case for us all.

He has unique talents and personality -- not a lot of equivalents
out there.

But it took 2/3 of a season for him to start to get it together . . .

The longer our players stay in this kind of program they will develop those skills and get better. This is why Phil likes players who already have good overall skills. If you're a big that has good passing ability that's gonna help you in executing in this offense. Most bigs aren't taught that anymore. It's much easier to just have him learn to set picks and roll. That's why Euro bigs are often preferable. They come out of a system of ball where all players are expected to develop all of their skills.

The Triangle is also much deeper than most actually know. The Knicks didn't use all of it under Fisher and that is also part of why Phil wants to get them deeper into the system rather than dabble in it. Now once they have mastered the Triangle you can add all kinds of things. it seems Fish wasn't trying to get the players to master the Triangle but rather use some of it and at the same time use a lot of the easier PnR stuff. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that but Fish had to keep winning in order to keep his job doing things that way. Once the losing streak hit Fish totally lost whatever faith and confidence Phil had left in him.

Malcolm wrote:

Nalod wrote:Bascially after fish, you get on the task and move forward.

But I don't think you can afford to do it with a new coach.

It's too disruptive.

With just the current core players and Triangle-24/7 . . . Rambis should get the team
to .500 next year.

With an off-season only just as good as last year (easy -- right?? . . . since everyone
thinks it was so mediocre), the Knicks should get Lopez-and-Williams-equivalents at
guard . . . and be a playoff team.

If this scenario doesn't come through . . . then I'll whole-heartedly agree that Jackson
has failed.

I do believe that this team can make another big jump in wins next year if Phil can make just a couple of key additions. Even with Rambis as coach I think it's possible. It's not like Rambis is teaching the players the wrong things. The talent and ability of the players to actually take what they learn and do something with it is the only limiting factor.

To me sports is like the stock market. And I do this for a living.
To me making decisions is like looking at the fundamentals of a stock. At this moment in time where is the stock, and what will change it?
I have to make a decision. The moment I make it, nothing changes. It take time for a thesis to play out. Hiring a "Winning name" does nothing unless I am commited to changing the system, the roster or both.
We are not changing the system. we are attempting to upgrade the roster, but that does not happen until this summer, if at all.
This is why Im not as upset at some about the coaching search. Blatt or Vogel won't make me feel better. I have nothing against them but even if hired we still have the same issues as before.

Malcolm wrote:But the Triangle state-of-mind on the Knicks is still only maybe 25% of what it was on
Bulls and Lakers.

Since I think the current Knicks core is only 25% of what it could be in terms of
Triangle State-of-Mind . . . the Success Level has lots of room to grow even without
roster improvement.

Blatt, Vogel, etc . . . are no help there.

Triangle-24/7 -- just do it (!)

Malcolm wrote:

nixluva wrote:The cultural part also will take time. We had a lot of young players who are trying hard to absorb a lot of new information and play at the highest level that is the NBA. It's easy for them to get overwhelmed. I think that's what happened with Jerian. He looks like the game is slowing down for now tho. As these players mature and gain more wisdom about what it takes to win, then the Culture Phil is trying to teach them will have more impact. Kobe didn't get the culture part at first either! People forget that now, but he was not in sync early on.

I'm not disagreeing with any of this.

I'm just emphasizing the Triangle Culture part of it more than I think you are doing.

I think we keep Rambis and emphasize that.

Blatt and Vogel are no help . . .

crzymdups wrote:If Phil had been allowed to hire Rambis and install his Triangle culture as he wanted, I think Rambis would have been named the coach by now.

Instead we have this mysterious vacation. The vacation came AFTER the Triangle Seminar

I don't think Rambis will be the coach, one way or the other. I think he'll certainly be on the coaching STAFF, though not as head coach. I think the team may run the Triangle offense, with Kurt serving as Tex Winter 2.

But I think the vacation and Phil mulling the coaching move will mean a different head coach once the silence is broken.

I think maybe Blatt, maybe Vogel, maybe Phil himself.

Time will tell.

Rambis didn't knock it out of the park as the head coach and so that made Phil have to pause and look at other options. The only thing stopping Phil from hiring Rambis is Phil. It's Phil's decision to make and I think as he always does, Phil is taking his time to really weigh the plus and minus of Rambis verses Vogel, Blatt etc.

Phil is known (from his books) to gather his family and head to Montana every year.
Or
Jeanne and him got some killer weed and doing some Trantic 5 hour sex sessions.
Or
Just doing his work, Montana thing as he would if he was anywhere else.

CrushAlot wrote:

wargames wrote:

nixluva wrote:

crzymdups wrote:If Phil had been allowed to hire Rambis and install his Triangle culture as he wanted, I think Rambis would have been named the coach by now.

Instead we have this mysterious vacation. The vacation came AFTER the Triangle Seminar

I don't think Rambis will be the coach, one way or the other. I think he'll certainly be on the coaching STAFF, though not as head coach. I think the team may run the Triangle offense, with Kurt serving as Tex Winter 2.

But I think the vacation and Phil mulling the coaching move will mean a different head coach once the silence is broken.

I think maybe Blatt, maybe Vogel, maybe Phil himself.

Time will tell.

Rambis didn't knock it out of the park as the head coach and so that made Phil have to pause and look at other options. The only thing stopping Phil from hiring Rambis is Phil. It's Phil's decision to make and I think as he always does, Phil is taking his time to really weigh the plus and minus of Rambis verses Vogel, Blatt etc.

I believe this as well. I don't think Blatt impressed and I also think he could be considering doing it himself, prior to Vogel being available. I'm assuming he'll speak to vogel before making a decision.

I agree with both responses. This is Phil's decision. He maybe thinking about coming back to the bench, or he maybe thinking about the influence he can have on the team if Rambis is the coach versus other candidates. I don't think anyone is preventing Phil from hiring Rambis except for Phil.

Interesting then that the only other candidate he's interviewed is Steve Mills' best friend. That, to me, at least suggests that Phil is not the person who has an issue with Rambis.

crzymdups wrote:If Phil had been allowed to hire Rambis and install his Triangle culture as he wanted, I think Rambis would have been named the coach by now.

Instead we have this mysterious vacation. The vacation came AFTER the Triangle Seminar

I don't think Rambis will be the coach, one way or the other. I think he'll certainly be on the coaching STAFF, though not as head coach. I think the team may run the Triangle offense, with Kurt serving as Tex Winter 2.

But I think the vacation and Phil mulling the coaching move will mean a different head coach once the silence is broken.

I think maybe Blatt, maybe Vogel, maybe Phil himself.

Time will tell.

I was just thinking that Phil is so odd sometimes that it really wouldn't shock me if he's waiting to get as close to free agency as possible to come out and announce that he was gonna coach the Knicks with the hopes of a star player being enticed by this and Phil being able to pounce on that player and get him to sign with the Knicks.....i'm not sure where all that just came from and reading it back it sounds ridiculous but you never know with Phil.