Jackson takes blame for Knicks’ struggles
NEW YORK — Phil Jackson offered a mea culpa for the New York Knicks’ awful first half of the season but said he’s doing what’s best for the franchise’s future.
Days after trading away two of the team’s best players and getting little in return, Jackson asked fans not to blame coach Derek Fisher because what’s shaping up as the worst season in franchise history is his responsibility.
The Knicks fell to an NBA-worst 5-35 with their 110-82 loss to Charlotte on Saturday to extend the longest single-season skid in team history to 15 games.
“In anticipating that we were going to be better, that we were giving hope to our fans that maybe there was a possible playoff opportunity here, that goes on me,” Jackson said.
“That we have to now take responsibility and move forward and make things happen, that also goes on me and now I have to do the job that I was brought in to do.”
Jackson had said before his first full season as the team’s president of basketball operations that he thought the Knicks were capable of contending for a playoff spot, but now says that “they obviously weren’t.”
But Jackson, part of two championship teams with the Knicks as a player and a title-winning coach with the Lakers and Bulls, insisted he’s making moves that could turn around a franchise that hasn’t won since that second title in 1973.
“We’re going through this period of time and some of the people that have been fans of this team have told me many times that there’s been this impression that maybe the team should blow it up and should start over again and it’s never happened,” Jackson said. “It’s always been going after the next big star.
“We kept searching for the big star to change our fortunes which has never happened in the last 45 years or so, so reality is that this is probably the best way to go about the business and to begin and to restart and do it the right way and put it together in a way that really makes sense.”
Jackson traded guards J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert to Cleveland this week in a three-team deal that could leave the Knicks with more than $25 million in salary cap space next summer. Jackson said he hopes to bring in five to six new players next season. He acknowledged making the wrong decisions on the team he put together this season, though he was hamstrung for financial reasons. He said the Knicks could be active at next month’s trade deadline.
Jackson also spoke highly of Carmelo Anthony, who hopes to return soon from a sore left knee. But the all-star forward might be one of the few Knicks who is still around next season. Jackson said this season’s group didn’t learn the team’s offence as quickly as he hoped, necessitating some of the moves he’s made and the next search for talent.