HISTORY REPEATING

Hornacek was undermined in Phoenix. Could the same thing be happening with Knicks?

MEMPHIS — To steal (and alter) a famous phrase to solve Jeff Hornacek’s conundrum — it’s better to get fired on your own two feet than survive propping up somebody else’s offense.

You’d think Hornacek learned that from his time in Phoenix. After all, he acknowledged his biggest regret with the Suns was agreeing to fire his assistants — two of his guys — because management ordered it, because it meant Hornacek might avoid his own ouster for a few more months.

That was only about a year ago. But apparently he was undermined long before that.

“Jeff was really good in Phoenix. Only thing with Jeff, to me, is he didn’t control that team,” Gerald Green, who played under Hornacek for two seasons in Phoenix, told the Daily News. “He had to listen to the front office guys a lot. And by him having to do that, it messed up his coaching style, messed up his groove.”

“He wasn’t really controlling the team,” Green added, saying the management takeover occurred in Hornacek’s second season. “I think if you let Jeff have more control of the team as far as letting him calling his own plays and letting him play who he feels like he should play, he’d do great.”

To be clear, that quote wasn’t about the Knicks and the triangle. But we may as well swap out Suns GM Ryan McDonough for Phil Jackson because of the obvious parallels.

Hornacek, despite the spin we heard, didn’t have a relationship with Jackson before he was hired. To cite Hornacek’s own account, their interactions were limited to handshakes after facing each other in the Finals. His experience running the triangle was limited, at best.

But he did achieve some success in Phoenix while running a fast-paced, 3-point heavy offense, invigorating the careers of Green, Goran Dragic and others.

“First year, the front office really wasn’t being as in control as they were the second year,” Green told the Daily News. “The first year they kind of let us play because they thought we were going to be sorry anyway. Then they realized we weren’t sorry, and they started to take control of the team instead of letting Jeff do what he did the first year.”

The Suns went from 48 wins in Hornacek’s first year, to 39 in his second. Green then left for the Heat, and Hornacek was fired last season with a 14-35 record.

This season — his first with the Knicks as the surprise hire — Hornacek was given until the All-Star break before Jackson was running a triangle clinic and pushing his favorite offense back into focus.

Now the coach, who passed up an opportunity for the Golden Ticket as Steve Kerr’s lead assistant, is committed to Jackson’s triangle.

“I always thought it could work,” he said. “We were trying to balance and doing some other things, and it’s a system that probably needs the repetition.

“And obviously we repeated it a little bit more often the second half of the year, and guys are running it better.”

It should be noted Hornacek once justified the firings of assistants Jerry Sichting and Mike Longabardi in Phoenix, saying, “Maybe the players need a different kind of philosophical stuff that maybe (the replacement assistants) can bring to the table.” About 11 months later, Hornacek changed his tune: “I should’ve just said, ‘If you want to fire them, then fire me too now.’ But I was trying to get along with management and what they want to do.” You can’t help but think Hornacek will regret not asserting himself this time around, with the Knicks and Jackson. The teetering between systems has already prompted players to voice their I confusion and frustrations. f Green noticed Hornacek was undercut in Phoenix, you can be sure the Knicks are aware of what’s going down. It’s hard to coach under that cloud.