Knicks; Phil Jackson finalizing Front Office Deal

[jonathanlambert33]

Knicks will probably still totally make this move, btw.

 

[Pugz]

this is such a knicks move.

 

[elcheato]

They aren't the only franchise who would hire him and pay him around that to just "advise"

 

[Pugz]

They aren't the only franchise who would hire him and pay him around that to just "advise"

well detroit didn't hire him last season and didn't fire dumars for him this season, so obviously not every team would, and, i really think only new york would be this dumb.

 

[jonathanlambert33]

They aren't the only franchise who would hire him and pay him around that to just "advise"

Maybe they aren't, but I doubt teams are lining up to pay Phil Jackson 15M a year to "advise" from nearly 3,000 miles away.

 

[elcheato]

15 may be a bit much, but 10 mill? A few teams would do it. Not saying it's smart or logical, but the Knicks aren't alone here.
 
Are there any financials out on the Jerry West deal? I know he got a minority ownership stake in the team, one would assume he makes a pretty penny to go along with that.
 
Fact of the matter is, even if they don't do much, for the positive publicity it brings to have a legend of his stature and respect in the organization, it's probably worth it. Good for recruiting too.

 

[Giantmetfan07]

Unbelievable.

I still wont believe anything until i see him at a podium with our logo on it

 

[Thomas-Panda-Saxby]

They trying to keep melo and attract more stars imo. 

 

[Giantmetfan07]

Knicks have announced a press conference for Tuesday, March 18th -- which we expect is to announce Jackson's role with the team. 
 
Or it could be this (since Dolan hates the Media):
 
https://twitter.com/netw3rk/status/444579346439995393

 

[Mexi]

Marc stein said nba people are asking why not give that extreme deal 5/60, to presti or rc buford

Good call. Sure okc and san an are excellent teams and why would those guys leave, but man, 60m? They wouldve thought about it

 

[elcheato]

I'd be hesitant on Buford considering he has the greatest coach of all time at his disposal.
 
Presti, not a big fan of.

 

[Mexi]

Point is, why not give money to a known front office commodity?

I doubt phil subscribes to the new age stats

 

[elcheato]

Is Phil really going to be doing anything other than signing off on things? To me, it sounds like he's going to be the de-facto owner. He doesn't pay the bills, but he approves deals made by Mills and has the final say. He'll hire his own coach. You wouldn't have background on this since it's NFL, but it reeks of the Browns hiring Mike Holmgren as the team president. He's going to collect a lot of money, not live in the area or be around the team, and let his guys run it. 
 
Any comparisons made to Pat Riley (if they've been made) are uninformed, he's 100% involved.
 
I could be off base.

 

[Giantmetfan07]

well Beck had a different view on the whole thing:

This is the ultimate evolution of Jackson’s mentoring impulse: to teach an entire franchise—indeed, the league’s most dysfunctional franchise—how to win. To impart all that he knows about team building, trust, strategy, training, preparation, work habits and, yes, Eastern philosophy. If any team needs a lesson in Zen, it’s the Knicks.
 
And no building needs a karmic cleansing more badly than Madison Square Garden, the world’s most toxic arena.
 
In Jackson, the Knicks are buying themselves a sheen of credibility, a stabilizing figure after 15 years of wild instability. They are also buying a new symbol of hope, something the Garden does almost annually.
 
Some skepticism is understandable.
 
Though Jackson’s credibility is engraved in those 11 shiny rings, he has never run a front office. Yet isn’t this the same path Pat Riley traveled, from coaching icon to exalted executive? Didn’t Larry Bird make a similar (and much quicker) leap from coach to team president?
 
The sharpest basketball minds find a way to channel their genius in whatever role they find. And Jackson is not seeking a traditional daily general manager job.
 
The role Jackson covets is best described as “philosopher-in-chief.” He wants to set the agenda, to establish a culture and a values system, to identify the type of players and coaches a team should pursue, the offensive and defensive philosophies it should adopt.
 
That could even extend to shaping the team’s training regimen and its use of analytics—an area that fascinates Jackson, and one he would surely seek to bolster. (The Knicks lag far behind many teams in this area.)
 
Contrary to speculation, it’s unlikely that Jackson would attempt to do the job from his beach house in Playa Del Rey, Calif. Those who know Jackson best say he would not take a job like this without relocating. And there is no doubting Jackson’s affection for New York—“a magical place to live,” he told me in 2011.
 
This much is also true: Jackson has no interest in getting cozy with agents, or poring over salary-cap minutiae or scouting college games. He will need a strong and experienced front office working with him. That might spell the end for Steve Mills, who was just hired as president and general manager last September. Mills is a savvy business executive, but he had never worked in basketball operations, and he has done nothing significant to date.
 
Indeed, Jackson could conceivably overhaul the entire front office. It’s hard to seem him coming out of retirement to be a distant figurehead, overseeing the same feckless crew of Garden loyalists and Creative Artists Agency cronies.

“If (Jackson’s hiring) breaks the stranglehold of CAA, I want it to happen,” said an agent who does business with the Knicks. “I can’t see him in a million years working with them.”

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1990985-why-phil-jackson-would-be-perfect-mentor-for-ailing-new-york-knicks

 
I like that. For $12M a year? not really. 
 
Also, I know it may sound weird, but I'd rather he not be in NY. I want him as far away from Dolan as possible. 

 

[elcheato]

He gonna teach em how to win from Montana? Word?
 
I think it's a decent move, but not because of cliched reasons like that

 

[Giantmetfan07]

I think it's more about not letting the Front Office/Ownership do stupid shit like listen to CAA and make trades for guys like Bargnani. Teaching them "how to prepare and how to win, how to train, how to have loyalty" might be as cliche as it gets but the Knicks have lacked all of those qualities for 40 years. 
 
Again, I'm optimistic, but part of me just expects this to fail. As this great paragraph once put it:
 

 
 
Such is life for the Knicks, a franchise who seems to bring in a new savior as often as most of its competitors bring in new ballboys. Once-in-a-generation scorer Bernard King gave way to can’t-miss-future-Hall-of-Famer Patrick Ewing who was joined by four-time-champion Pat Riley who was replaced by former-Coach-of-the-Year Don Nelson whose stewardship was far too brief to work under greatest-pure-point-guard-ever Isiah Thomas who hired former-NBA-champion Lenny Wilkens who was fired in favor of winner-at-all-levels-and-coacher-of-The-Right-Way Larry Brown whose disastrous tenure led to his replacement by Thomas himself before David Stern tore him from James Dolan’s death grip in favor of no-nonsense-basketball-lifer Donnie Walsh who hired offensive-mind-of-his-generation Mike D’Antoni who was reunited with proclaimer-that-the-Knicks-are-back Amar’e Stoudemire who accepted the role of second banana behind guy-who-grew-up-idolizing-Bernard-King-and-holy-shit-time-is-circular Carmelo Anthony. Each of these men came in with pedigree to spare and each was hailed as a bringer of a new era and each has baked a big, doughy New York bagel where the championship ring was supposed to be.

 

[Giantmetfan07]

He gonna teach em how to win from Montana? Word?
 
I think it's a decent move, but not because of cliched reasons like that

 
also Howard beck's piece basically says he doesn't think Jackson would run the team away from NY. So idk. That was like 2 days ago, something probably changed that I haven't read yet.