Zen and the Art of Knickerbocker Maintence

[jonathanlambert33]

There are two things and really two things only to know about the New York Knicks now-apparently-imminent hiring of Phil Jackson to head up basketball operations. These two things have both been written about and argued for at length but where the narrative up to now errs is that it poses them as conflicting viewpoints on the hire when, in reality, theyre both true.

Yes, this will probably fail. And yes, its still the right move.

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 cant-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 Dolans death grip in favor of no-nonsense-basketball-lifer Donnie Walsh who hired offensive-mind-of-his-generation Mike DAntoni who was reunited with proclaimer-that-the-Knicks-are-back Amare 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.

The point is, weve tried this just about every way we could think of and it hasnt really counted for much, give or take a deep playoff run here and a Marburian Truck Party there. All of it seemed great at the time. None of it really worked.

Comes now Philip Douglas Jackson, coacher of legends and wearer of rings on all 10 fingers and one of his big toes, who for some mysterious (hint: its money) reason (seriously though, lots of money) has decided to embrace this centurys most disappointing franchise in the throes of its most disappointing season and call the whole mess his own. The man he will either replace or marginalize, Steve Mills, has made but one decision during his tenure that anybody will remember five years from now and that was the rostering of an utterly unqualified point (?) guard for reasons that the Knicks didnt even bother to pretend werent nakedly nepotistic. The coach, Mike Woodson, has been living on borrowed time for months that have felt like decades and is likely to be replaced before too long as part of the wholesale (and overdue) ousting of the ancien MSGime. The players, who have cloaked their contempt for the present situation about as well as flip-flops cloak your feet, seem desperate for a leader or a direction or a plan. And the nominal center of the Knicks decision-making universe, so long an intellectual vacuum, is about to be filled by anyones choice as one of the top 5 basketball minds of this or any generation. In terms of bona fides, this is an upgrade to rival Grant over McClellan. In terms of gravitas, its the fucking Big Bang in reverse.

And do you want to hear the real kick in the ass of it? Theres an entire cottage industry of relatively smart, plugged-in people out there who think this is a mistake. Thats what the Knicks have wrought over the past decade and change: a sense of existential despair so enveloping that even the all-time greats arent exempt. To put it more simply: when you expect every decision to fail, you expect every big decision to fail bigger.

http://hardwoodparoxysm.com/2014/03/13/zen-and-the-art-of-knickerbocker-maintenance/

 

[Giantmetfan07]

Technically 13 rings.

Funny thing is though, under Walsh it was starting to work until Jimmy put his dirty fingers on deals again. If he just stays the fuck away this can work.

 

[playmaker7]

I feel like it's going to take a lot of work to fix that organization but if anyone can do it, Phil definitely can.