I’ve been ignoring the chatter for the past few weeks. It seemed inconceivable Phil would even consider the headaches of running the Knicks front office. He’s accomplished so much. Both as a Player and a Coach with 11 NBA Titles. He’s based comfortably on the West Coast with gf Jeanie Buss. She’s part owner and the President of the Lakers. I can’t imagine the strained atmosphere in their bedroom before a Knicks / Lakers game.
Any predictions on how well the Zen Master will do? Will he be able to keep hands off and let the new coach do his job? Will Phil have the magic touch for finding new players?
Most important question. Will the Knicks win a NBA championship within the next 3 or 4 seasons?
I for 1 am shocked he’s picking the Knicks. The only teams I saw him plausibly running were: Spurs, Thunder, Heat or Pavers. He just never struck me as someone who actually wanted to actually work to coach or run a team.
I never got the impression that Phil was the sentimental type. He played for the Knicks 40 years ago. I didn’t think that would factor very much into his decision. Maybe he is a sentimental fool after all.
I think Phil took the job first and foremost because it’s the only team that would offer him one. I think his primary motives for lobbying for a front office job is that he wants to chase rings and the front office is the only way that he can still do so without grinding it out on the court/sidelines. No road trips, no practices, no yelling, nothing. Just go in 3 days a week and make some phone calls. Now if he actually does win any rings is another conversation.
Those teams already have excellent management, so they have no reason to hire him for any job. The Knicks have a mediocre team, no draft picks, and no salary cap room as constituted. Of course they might get cap room if Carmelo leaves, but that won’t exactly make them better. So I am not sure what Phil can is even do other than collect a huge paycheck. They’ll be better with a better coach - or almost any coach other than Woodson - but they are a very long way from a championship contender and it’s going to be hard to turn them into one.
They offered him (supposedly) full autonomy and 15 million per year. I seriously doubt any team offered either of those things, so taking the job is a no brainer even for someone who is already set for life. As far as how he is going to do i imagine he will do as well as can be expected, the Knicks are completely tied to their current path and there is almost nothing anyone can do about it for at least the next half decade. Best case scenario is low to mid tier playoff threadmill team, worst case is lottery team with no pics (this year they are definitely on the latter path).
I admire Phil Jackson tremendously (even though I often find him irritating and exasperating). And I have no doubt he COULD be a great NBA general manager, IF he were prepared to move to New York full-time and put in the long hours and hard work that the job entails.
Right now, I don’t have much confidence that he has the energy or patience to do a very demanding job. I think he DOES have an itch to be part of the game again, but he still enjoys being a man of leisure too much. You can’t be a commuter GM or a part-time GM.
He was very interested in going to Seattle if the Ballmer group had purchased the Kings, and I think there were talks linking him to Toronto at one point, too. Anyway: I am not sure about his commitment (though he won’t be staying in LA) or how long he will put up with Dolan’s meddling and his controlling ways. Jimmy Boy has run some very good coaches and executives out of town already. And Phil is 68 and has never run a team before. That would be a huge obstacle in a normal situation, but the biggest problem is that it’s going to be really hard for them to improve in the next two years or so. Even keeping Carmelo could be tricky at this point.
As a Lakers fan, I wish him luck but wish that we had gotten him. I don’t know if he’ll do well, and the knock on him is that he’s never been at that level where he’d have total control over the whole organization, but I’m sure he’ll do well. At least he can’t screw things up any more than the Knicks already are.
While I do like Phil a lot and which he’d have made it back to the Lakers, from all the stuff I’ve been reading and hearing on the radio, that wasn’t going to happen. Unlike a lot of Lakers fans, I don’t think Jim Buss is totally incompetent or a clod. He did, after all, organize the Pau Gasol trade, the vetoed Chris Paul trade (may David Stern rot in hell), and the Dwight Howard trade. He doesn’t want to give up his family’s business (and apparently this was the last wish of the late Jerry Buss) and he’s had a good knack for trades recently.
The problem I’ve heard is that Phil wanted too much power and Jim wasn’t willing to just step aside nor was he willing to tell Mitch Kupchak to leave. We have a lot of great management and we simply couldn’t fit another one here. If only Phil was willing to just go back to coaching, then we’d get everyone we wanted, but eventually, like Pat Riley or Jerry West, the organization didn’t make enough room for the guys whose stature was rising and deserved a promotion.
That’s not really true either: things aren’t always that simple. He did coach a lot of great players, but that’s true of every coach who won a bunch of championships. You can’t tell me that Riley and Popovich and Auerbach won with a lot of scrubs.
On one hand, of COURSE Phil Jackson was lucky to have Michael Jordan… but Doug Collins had Michael Jordan, too, and didn’t do much with him.
And of COURSE Phil was lucky to have Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant… but Del Harris had them too, and didn’t do much with them.
Phil Jackson was able to get big stars with big egos to buy into his system and do things his way. That’s NOT an easy task. There’s a word for it… let’s see, what was that word…? Oh yeah!
COACHING. Damn good coaching.
Believe me, I UNDERSTAND why Phil rubs many people the wrong way, and why many people want to take him down a few pegs. But the guy has been a hell of a coach.
Jackson will most likely fail as President of the Knicks, if anyone getting a salary of that much can be considered a failure. To my knowledge he hasn’t demonstrated that he has any front office management skills, skills which are different from being the head coach. He excelled as a head coach and was in the right time and the right place as a player. As president, he hasn’t got the skills. I look for him to collect his money and retire in 2-3 year. He’s comparable to Mike Holmgren, who was outstanding as a head coach at Green Bay and Seattle but who stunk out the joint as team president in Seattle and Cleveland.
