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New York Knicks: Phil Jackson Speaks To The Media

By Owen Sanborn

Mar 19, 2014; New York, NY, USA; New York Knicks new president Phil Jackson sits in the stands during the first quarter of a game against the Indiana Pacers at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 19, 2014; New York, NY, USA; New York Knicks new president Phil Jackson sits in the stands during the first quarter of a game against the Indiana Pacers at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports /
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Once every month or so, New York Knicks President Phil Jackson speaks to the media and delivers all kinds of soliloquies that correspond to how the Knicks are playing on the court and how they may improve themselves off of it. Jackson’s words are not always limited to just basketball, he will often throw in one of his euphemisms to get the media pot stirring just a bit.

Over recent months (like February and on), his talks have became watered down and he is beginning to repeat himself. Basically each and every comment he makes has to do with free agency being a priority this summer or that this season was a failed experiment. Blah blah blah. Jackson has been on autopilot now it seems for two months running.

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Here is Jackson talking about free agency to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne for approximately the 45,960th time:

“We know what the first-round pick is going to mean for us, but we also know we’re going to build our team with free agents … A hundred and ninety players or so are going to be free agents. Not half the league, but like a third of the league is going to be free agents. So that’s where our priority stands.”

So, he knows how many players are in this year’s free agent class. Good start.

He then goes on to talk about how the philosophy of acquiring free agent players has evolved over the years:

“It’s not about who is going to have to have the most money anymore. That playing field has pretty much evened out, especially with the amount of money that’s coming into the league. It’s going to be whose attractive enough to get the people they want to play their style of play. The way they’re doing it. So establishing how you want to play basketball is important. And there’s only a few teams in this league that can say this is our definitive way that we want to play. We want to be one of those teams. So we have eyesight on who can play in our system and who wants to play.”

In the Knicks’ case, this could be a problem. Everyone knows that Derek Fisher was brought in to run the triangle and run it into the ground. The issue with that is that today’s NBA players (not named Kobe Bryant) do not want to play within that system.

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    • It is a slow, drawn out system that requires time to get acclimated to and is on the complete other end of the spectrum from the rest of the league’s “pace and space” bonanza.

    Even if Jackson and Fisher come to their senses and ease some of the strain on running the triangle, New York still is not aware of their style of play because they aren’t sure who the hell is going to be on the roster next season. It is difficult to institute a method or even project one when the roster is going to be in such shambles this summer.

    If there were to sign Goran Dragic, maybe they should execute a more running style of play. If they elect to go after the services of defensive-minded like Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green then they could perhaps sell them on the triangle, but the team would be built around its defense.

    There are a bunch of ways they could go, but it is dependent on the impending players they are able to bring in, not the players on the current roster.

    The bottom line is that watching Jackson toy with the media is always a treat in itself and hopefully next month’s tango is a bit less repetitive.

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