NY Knicks News: David Fizdale takes a cryptic dig at the organization’s leadership

David Fizdale believes the New York Knicks could have handled things better

David Fizdale is on the hunt for his next head coaching job. After a quick year and a half in Memphis, he replicated that duration with the New York Knicks. While the firing that was at first criticized by the masses, Mike Miller’s success as interim head coach of the team has made it look somewhat reasonable.

Since then, the Knicks have moved on completely, hiring a big fish in Tom Thibodeau to be the next leader of the team. He’ll have challenges to face, but he seems willing, calling this his dream job.

One has to wonder all that went wrong with Fizdale for it to end so quickly and abruptly. Fizdale, in looking back on the role, made some remarks that feel like a dig at the organization.

Former NY Knicks coach David Fizdale sends a shot at organization

David Fizdale spent some time with Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles over video call for their podcast, the Knuckleheads podcast. While on the show Fizdale spoke at-length about his NBA experience and the few coaching stops he’s had thus far.

Much of the conversation centered on the culture the Miami Heat have built, and how it breeds winning and accountability. While talking about that culture, there was a bit of a dig to the Knicks and how they do things (emphasis my own).

"“What a lot of teams don’t understand is — It’s not the players that you’ve got to get to buy into it. It’s the people above the coach. It’s the people who are kind of set in their ways, and they think how they do it is the way to do it, that’s the right way and all that stuff. So trying to get them to understand to buy in and getting them to understand what culture really is is the toughest part of it. And you don’t know until the sh– hits the fan. When a player is rebelling or going against the culture, that’s when you need those people the most.”"

While Fizdale could just be speaking generally here, it’s tough not to realize he’s probably drawing on his own experience. While he could be speaking about Memphis (or heck, even Miami), the shoe fits better on New York. It’s well-known that the Knicks don’t have particularly high-functioning ownership, and that poor leadership has trickled down through the cracks of the front office throughout the years. It’s partially why the team has had 10 coaches since 2000.

Now, the Knicks have a new front office in place and a new coach, but the ownership is still the same. It remains to be seen if the issues will resolve themselves.

Fizdale, when speaking about the New York fans, had nothing but good to say:

"“Even though we stunk, I had incredible support from the fans. Like unbelievable support, you know you’ve got a couple of dudes here and there that might send your wife a Tweet or something, and something crazy like that, but at the end of the day man, every time I walked in that arena man, fans was like, 100, and ‘cause was always honest with the fanbase. I didn’t try to sugar coat stuff, I never blamed the players for what was going on around us, like I always just told it how it was and I think New York fans appreciated that, that I wasn’t there bullshitting them, I was there just trying to give them the deal, you know, ultimately we just didn’t win enough games. And you know, as a coach I take ownership of that. You know, that’s, I ain’t putting that on my players, I take ownership of that. So they had the decision to change me out, so be it. But I wasn’t putting that on the front office and I wasn’t putting that on the players or the owner and the other stuff people want to do and make it about."

In the end, Fizdale remarked that he takes ownership for how his short tenure in New York went and that he doesn’t want to blame the front office. Reading between the lines, though, it’s hard not to connect some dots.