DEVOTED TO TRIANGLE
No quit in Fisher as ex-Knick coach takes flight with Barnes’ estranged wife
Derek Fisher, who was fired as head coach of Knicks Monday, is seen on Instragram (circled, back) on a jetway with Gloria Govan (circled, front), the estranged wife of ex-teammate Matt Barnes (inset). Back in October, Barnes allegedly punched out Fisher at Govan’s L.A. home.
WITH Derek Fisher out of the picture — or at least the picture not involving an international vacation with Gloria Govan — Kevin Seraphin is looking forward to showing he’s better on the court than the bench.
The center was an early benefactor of the coaching change in Kurt Rambis’ debut this week, playing more minutes (15) than all but two of his previous 32 games.
Needless to say, the 26-yearold wasn’t going to romanticize Fisher’s stint.
“I don’t have any thoughts. I’m not the general manager,” he told the Daily News. “I just hope for more playing time. That’s the goal. It’s a new opportunity for sure.
“It’s not only me. It’s all the guys on the bench,” he added. “It’s a new opportunity for us. We have to take it.”
Prior to the season Fisher indicated that it was him and not Phil Jackson who was keen on signing Seraphin as a free agent. But after some early opportunities for the French international — including an emotional performance on the day after the terrorist attacks in Paris — Seraphin largely disappeared from the rotation.
He still managed to address a weight issue by dropping 25 pounds during the season. Seraphin, who is 6-foot-9, said he’s down to 275 pounds.
“I did it by taking the extra time, waking up in the morning, running,” he said. “Because I don’t play.”
Rambis said a short eight-man rotation would be ideal but is “unrealistic” during the regular season, preferring to go with nine or 10 in a pinch.
He also plotted a goal of staggering the rotations better than Fisher, rather than substituting lineups all at once. “I never liked it as a player when you were locked into coming out at a specific time on the clock,” Rambis said. “So it’s always going to be a feel thing. But we’ve got to do a much better job of blending the u n it s. I t can’t be a full starting unit and a then full second unit out there. So that we can keep continuity with guys and also keep some of our key ballplayers on the court so we can keep some scoring.”
In the loss to the Wizards on Tuesday, Rambis went w ith 10 dif ferent players while Kyle O’Quinn, Jerian Grant and Lou Amundson log ged DN P s. T he lack of faith in O’Quinn and Grant — not just from Rambis, but also Fisher — is concerning. The Knicks acquired O’Quinn on a four-year deal over the summer and traded Tim Hardaway Jr. for Grant, a rookie drafted with the 19th pick in July.