CJackson wrote:whocares1 wrote:CJackson wrote:
Phil the engaged and Phil the indifferent are just two of the masks Phil wears, but make no mistake about it Phil has always been among the vainest people in the game and every action or supposed inaction (look at the fans this off-season gloating about Phil the shadow warrior) are all calculations. Phil acting like he doesn't care about what people say is just one of Phil's tactics for influencing what people say about Phil Jackson.
Phil is calculating in most everything he does. That is probably a good thing when the one doing it is smarter than others. It gives them an advantage.
But initially Phil stumbled and he was not smarter. He righted himself. But he is calculating all the time and one of his adjustments was pulling back on his smugness about being able to field a team that plays his way, AKA the "right" way and how he would ether the rest of the NBA playing the game correctly.
So there is Phil the manager of the team and Phil the manager of his reputation. He made adjustments in regards to both. And him blaming the current NBA for lack of ball knowledge may be a way of explaining away his fixation on the triangle even if the assertion is fundamentally true anyway.
This entire post is completely true and it pains me to see that many don't agree. You were very critical of Phil before he made these moves, and while I have always supported and understood the direction that Phil wanted the Knicks to go in, I could definitely spot that his strategy has turned a complete 180 and many have turned a blind eye to it. Hornacek is not a Phil guy. DRose is not a triangle point guard. Phil has preached many times his lack of interest for a ball dominant guard, and yet he decided to trade a guy who committed 4 years to his vision(Lopez) for exactly that?
Phil was 1000% pressured by the media and the fanbase to build a team that was different from the one he had envisioned. It was a battle between his pride and his reputation, so he is trying to save his "reputation" while hedging his pride by saying today's players cannot play fundamental basketball. While he might be right to a certain extent, he is using this to shield the blow to his pride because he had to scrap his vision.
That's it. He changed gears.
The other thing that entails is he might have actually been able to lay a better foundation in the first two years to complement the nice drafting of KP if he had handled his early trades better. There may have been a window when Shump would have a key component in landing Lowry and Tyson was flat out dumped.
So Phil pretty much stunk up the joint in his first year when you add in Fisher and the no-trade clause.
So whatever chances he had to build completely organically was a missed opportunity.
But that's OK. He had to change because his mind was full of doodoo that first year and he really thought today's players would all play the triangle and sing kumbayah and that just ain't so.
By that measure this off-season was a pretty stunning reversal and a very good recovery for Phil.
I'm actually fairly optimistic, because at the very least I expect the playoffs and becoming a truly viable destination next off-season. And I believe we have some younger talent on the team that is going to pan out. So Phil did pretty well for a guy who was indeed clueless when he started out.
Yes, the rookie President became a veteran after about a year's worth of experience.
Was he a stupid guy when he started? Not at all. He was a very skillful, talented rookie. He just needed to learn about the team, the players, and the league. He tried some things that absolutely didn't work. Then he still tried to push the triangle. Now we see he's issued a statement that players don't have triangle-specific skills. I agree.
It's like my son was taught computers instead of learning cursive writing. He can barely read cursive, but he has already built several computers from scratch. Different skills. Today's players are physically better, and it's not even close. They really don't know all the things about playing together that the older guys used to know. The championship Knicks teams were a model of team play. Only a few teams today really demonstrate team system play. Those are our best teams: SA, GS, etc. Yes, Cleveland won with the best player and an amount of system play. But without Lebron, teams don't win without more team play.
This year's Knicks were created to play system basketball. They have a coach who is a great choice to help them develop team chemistry. We may incorporate triangle plays, and we may run a lot of pick and roll, fast breaks, etc. It's not that our players couldn't learn triangle skills. They just haven't been taught them because there's more emphasis on individual skill building and less on team-building skills. Phil has acknowledged that he can't go shopping for triangle players and find enough good ones. So this statement shows why he switched gears. Great job for an "old guy."
