THE LOWS ... AND LOWS
Phil Jackson joined the Knicks as team president in March 2014 to much fanfare and paeans to the team’s glory days. He was fired Wednesday, having lost the trust of the fan base, the loyalty of the team’s best players … and a lot of games. For every ring he won and Zen Master stroke of genius he worked as a coach, Jackson committed as many blunders as an executive. The Post’s Ethan Sears takes a look at the lowlights:
May 15, 2014: Steve Kerr is hired as Warriors coach. The Knicks had pursued Kerr — who played for Jackson in Chicago — for their vacant head coaching position, but lost out on him in part because Jackson offered just a three-year, $13.2 million contract compared to Golden State’s five-year, $22 million offer.
June 10, 2014: Jackson hires Derek Fisher (right) as head coach of the Knicks. Fisher goes 40-96 over a season-and-a-half before being fired.
June 25, 2014: The Knicks acquire Jose Calderon, Wayne Ellington, Shane Larkin, Samuel Dalembert and two 2014 second-round picks from the Mavericks in exchange for Raymond Felton and Tyson Chandler. It is later learned Jackson could have gotten Jae Crowder instead of one of the second-round picks.
Jan. 5, 2015: The Knicks trade J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert to the Cavaliers as part of a three-team deal in which they receive Lou Amundson, Alex Kirk, Cleveland’s 2019 secondround pick and Lance Thomas from the Thunder. Smith and Shumpert become pivotal parts of Cleveland’s 2016 championship squad. May 10, 2015: Jackson tweets, “NBA analysts give me some diagnostics on how 3pt oriented teams are faring this playoffs… seriously, how’s it goink?” Just over a month later, the Warriors win the NBA Finals having taken more 3-pointers than all but one team that season.
Feb. 8, 2016: Jackson fires Fisher and plants loyal lieutenant Kurt Rambis as the interim head coach. Rambis goes 9-19 to finish out the season, making headlines for suggesting Kristaps Porzingis should play small forward, before being passed over in favor of Jeff Hornacek for the permanent job that summer. Feb. 9, 2016: Yahoo reports Jackson fired Fisher because he strayed from the triangle offense too frequently, especially late in games. June 22, 2016: The Knicks acquire Derrick Rose, Justin Holiday and a 2017 second-round pick from the Bulls in exchange for Robin Lopez, Jerian Grant and Jose Calderon. Rose fails to spark the Knicks and literally disappears on the team for a game against the Pelicans in January 2017. July 1, 2016: The Knicks agree to sign Joakim Noah to a four-year, $72 million contract, which was widely met with skepticism at the time and now is considered to be one of the worst deals in NBA history. Noah plays 46 ineffective games before missing the rest of the season due to injury. July 14, 2016: The Knicks re-sign triangle acolyte Sasha Vujacic to the chagrin of fans. Vujacic plays 42 games and is out of the rotation early in the season. March 9, 2017: After hiring Hornacek on the presumption the Knicks would update their insistence on the triangle offense, Jackson holds a triangle seminar with the Knicks’ guards. Jackson retrenches on running the triangle, which the Knicks do for the rest of the season. April 14, 2017: Jackson holds an end-of-season press conference during which he declares Carmelo Anthony “would be better off somewhere else,” destroying the Knicks’ leverage in a potential trade and prompting buyout talks that reportedly commenced this week. June 21, 2017: Jackson confirms the Knicks are shopping star forward Kristaps Porzingis by going on MSG Network and saying, “As much as we love [Porzingis], we have to do what’s best for the club.” Jackson is openly resentful of Porzingis’ decision to skip his 2017 exit meeting, claiming no one had done that to him in all his years of coaching.