# Knicks (well, really Phil J) hires Derek Fisher as the new head coach. **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [June 10, 2014, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/knicks-well-really-phil-j-hires-derek-fisher-as-the-new-head-coach/690462 "2014-06-10T09:43:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2014, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/knicks-well-really-phil-j-hires-derek-fisher-as-the-new-head-coach/690462/1 "2014-06-10T09:43:02Z")
Derek is from my city, Little Rock and played for the UALR Trojans. Glad to see my hometown guy make good. He’s had an amazing career since playing for Parkview High. What an opportunity to learn coaching from the very best. Phil will surround him with experienced assistants to handle the administrative duties. Derek can teach these players the triangle offense and hopefully Phil will be teaching in practice too. I’ve heard Derek was a natural leader on the Lakers. He should know how to motivate this team. He’ll make a bunch of mistakes too. Thats part of learning. I have no idea how this will work out. It may take three seasons to build a competitive team from the ground up. James Dolan may fire everybody after the first losing season. Hard to predict what Dolan might do. I think the experience training under Phil is a win, win for Derek. He walks away with a great coaching education and hefty paycheck regardless of what Dolan does with the team. > **[Derek Fisher agrees to become new Knicks coach](https://www.nydailynews.com/2014/06/10/derek-fisher-agrees-to-become-new-knicks-coach/)** > > Derek Fisher remembers being so intimidated by New York City during his first visit here as a player that he spent much of his time inside his hotel room. Well, that same cautious point guard has g… > [@](#): > > Despite Fisher’s inexperience, he fulfills several requirements that Jackson, the Knicks’ president, has for his head coach. Fisher played under Jackson in Los Angeles, where they won five titles together. Fisher knows the triangle offense and won’t feel threatened by having Jackson mentor him and occasionally be on the court working alongside him. > [@](#): > > “I’d like to have a prior relationship with a coach so that we know that we’ve gone through some kind of issues together,” Jackson said last month. “We’ve dealt with some kind of battle situations. We’ve had conflicts, we’ve had disagreements and we know how to work things out. Those, I think, are part and parcel I think to having a relationship with people that can work together that can still disagree and come to terms.” ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2014, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/knicks-well-really-phil-j-hires-derek-fisher-as-the-new-head-coach/690462/2 "2014-06-10T19:38:13Z")
Does anyone think Phil has any chance of succeeding with an inexperienced coach? I’m a little puzzled by this trend of sending ex players directly to head coaching jobs. It seems odd that they don’t serve as assistant coaches first. It is a more intuitive path for learning the job. Derek will need a lot of Phil’s hands on help for this to have any chance of working. I’d guess Phil is well aware of that. I’m not a Knicks fan, but will be interested to see how they do next season. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/knicks-well-really-phil-j-hires-derek-fisher-as-the-new-head-coach/690462/3 "2014-06-10T19:56:30Z")
A local story about Derek. Everybody is excited to see this guy move up to coaching. He’s always been a class act. Still supports UALR when he can. I’d forgotten he played under Wimp Sanderson for a couple years. Wimp coached nearly all his career at the University of Alabama and then coached at UALR for a couple years. [http://www.ualrtrojans.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB\_LANG=C&DB\_OEM\_ID=7400&ATCLID=209519356](http://www.ualrtrojans.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=7400&ATCLID=209519356)