Optimistic Jeff Hornacek eager to get the ball rolling with KnicksBY STEVE POPPER
STAFF WRITER | THE RECORD
Back in his playing days, more than 20 years ago, there was one night shortly before the trade deadline when the phone rang and a reporter told Jeff Hornacek that he was being traded to the Knicks. And he was ready.
"Anytime you played in New York," he said. "There was always something special about being here as a player."
But the trade never happened and the son of a coach continued on his way, away from the spotlight and glare of Madison Square Garden, finishing up a solid playing career, raising a family and returning to the NBA as an assistant and then a coach. And then the phone rang again.
This time it was his agent telling him that Phil Jackson was going to call, the Knicks president wanting to meet to discuss the team's coaching vacancy. Jackson's tenure as an executive, despite his Hall of Fame career as a coach, had been notable for the misses on the bench, unable to land his first choice, Steve Kerr, and rolling through the coach he'd inherited, Mike Woodson, and then Derek Fisher and Kurt Rambis in short order.
When Jackson was making the decision on the next coach to lead the Knicks through the latest rebuild, he insisted it would be someone from his inner circle. And then he sat down with the amiable Hornacek and after a long talk, Hornacek finally was coming to the Garden.
The 53-year-old Illinois native will open his first training camp with the Knicks on Tuesday, eager and optimistic about his opportunity. He has spent the past few weeks watching pickup games and workouts, picking up little hints of how this new blend of talent can work together.
Hornacek spent 14 years as a player in the NBA, taking time to be with his family before becoming an assistant with Utah under Jerry Sloan and then Tyrone Corbin. He became coach of the Phoenix Suns and guided them to a 48-34 record in 2013-14, his first season, as he finished second in Coach of the Year balloting. After an injury-riddled second season, Hornacek was dismissed in February with the team at 14-35 last season.
Hornacek had his own system in Phoenix, where he coached for 2 1/2 seasons. But now, he has a team with an anchor piece in Carmelo Anthony and a talented cast of teammates who arrive with injury histories and something to prove. And he also has to make his system work in conjunction with the favored triangle offense that Jackson employed as coach of the Bulls and Lakers.
"We're going to blend," Hornacek said. "I don't think we're necessarily made out to do that fast break. We had several guards in Phoenix, so we can sort of do that. We do have guys who can run the court. We want to use our defense to trigger that early offense. We'll open it up that way in the early part of it.
"But in the halfcourt, we're going to have a lot of aspects of the triangle. It's not very much different than the offense we ran in Utah a long time ago. Just a way to space the floor, get these guys in positions where they can be successful and — once these guys learn to play with each other, and trust each other and make extra passes that way and share the ball — there's going to be plenty of shots for everybody."
In June when Hornacek was introduced, Jackson described the conversation about the offensive system and downplayed any conflict. "So Jeff was like, 'Is this basketball?' " Jackson said. "And I said, 'I guess so.'" But it's worth noting that Fisher, who played for Jackson in Los Angeles, was at odds with Jackson over the system, and it led in no small measure to his dismissal.
Fisher never had served a day as an assistant, moving right from his playing days to the top job on the bench, a move that Jackson compared to when Larry Bird was hired in Indiana and backed up with veteran assistants. But in Hornacek he opted for someone outside of his circle of friends and with his own history.
"This is entirely different," Jackson said after announcing the hiring. "This is a coach that knows how to run practices and has had that experience and is reflective about his past and has experiences with a variety of systems. That is a different model obviously than what we're doing.
"The team that was featured here three years ago, although they had come from a rather decent year four seasons ago where they did win 50 games — they had a collection of older players, veteran players. … We started all over again. We cleaned our roster, we gathered money and space and changed the context of this team. So this is a coach that can teach and also has an idea of what kind of practice he wants to run and how he wants to do business."
Hornacek expressed the optimism of every team at the start of a season, confident in the group of players who Jackson and general manager Steve Mills stocked the roster with in the latest round of rebuilds. Even with the injury history of many of them, Hornacek said, "First of all, I don't think we're going to have injuries. I don't think we're ever going to talk about it. Some of these injuries are flukes. Guys have worked hard. If an injury happens, it happens."
Today, it's all good. The systems will blend. The ligaments will hold. And Hornacek, as he did at the season-opening press conference Friday, can smile without any reason to worry.
9/27/2016 6:34 PM