Bill Pidto wrote:Phil was awesome in my eyes. I'll always appreciate his tenure and remember it fondly.
Honestly, some of the best things about him were his brash personality and willingness to toy with the NY media. If you ask me, the Knicks needed someone like him to cleanse the franchise. Now, everyone's on their best behavior. He sacrificed his "legacy" to rebuild the team because he knew it was the right thing. So I laugh at anyone who says he came here to collect a check and simply didn't care. He cared enough to do something no one else ever had the balls to do here, and now we're all better off for it. Talk about a legacy.
Him tearing teams down to tank for lottery picks, getting screwed in the draft lottery the first time and still turning the pick into absolute gold, and very possibly the best player in that draft, is nothing short of heart-warming. Then for him to hit this last pick with Frank out of the park like many of us now suspect he did... to me... was all well-worth some of the heartache the fickle NY fans were forced to endure throughout his tenure. It was all worth it, and it's a shame there were so many who couldn't see it that way before they became so emotional.
The biggest mystery that remains to me is Melo's NTC. I know that wasn't Phil's idea, and I know he couldn't have been happy about it. I hope he writes about it all one day.
Agreed to all said here.
The ntc was or was not Phil, but by going to war with Melo he forced Melo out and a new dawn in.
Noone but someone with Phil Jackson's credentials could of challenged a well liked all-star vet like Melo who was armed with a NTC.
Given that Phil took a bullet for the sake of the franchise, even the haters have to admit he left the franchise better. After witnessing last night, now all of us are happy bout it. Even the Phil haters.
