New York Knicks: Grading summer moves at the halfway mark

David Fizdale takes over

The Knicks are bad. Like 10-31 bad. But the thing is, can you really blame head coach David Fizdale for this?

With Kristaps Porzingis still out, Fizdale has been coaching a star-less Knicks team, who, of course, has failed to contend for a playoff spot. Even though bringing home wins is a huge portion of the job of a head coach, sometimes winning isn’t all it takes to consider a coach “successful.”

Fizdale started his head coaching career with the Memphis Grizzlies. Being in Memphis for the entire 2016-17 season and a small part of the 2017-18 season, he finished his 101-game span with a record of 50-51. He was appointed by the Knicks in May, following the firing of Jeff Hornacek.

Setting aside the fact that the team is not winning many games, which we all knew was going to be the case, Fizdale has not been half bad so far. He has managed to unearth a couple of young talents, even with constantly fluid rotations.

When one player has a breakout season, nobody expects the praise to go towards the coach. But the 2018-19 Knicks have multiple players breaking out, having career seasons. It might just be time we gave coach Fizdale some credit for that.

Enes Kanter, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Noah Vonleh are just some of the names that have been at the top of the headlines so far, putting up numbers that we’ve never seen from them before.

Fizdale has done an okay job with the development of the young guys during his first half of the season as the head coach of the Knicks. It’ll be fun to see what kind of game plan he comes up with once Kristaps Porzingis comes back from his injury and the team starts giving even heavier minutes to the youngsters.

Grade: B