Sir Charles in Charge
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Phil Jackson Has Been Nothing But Fail Knicks Fans

By Nicholas Gonzalez

Apr 6, 2017; New York, NY, USA; New York Knicks general manager Phil Jackson watches during the second quarter against the Washington Wizards at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 6, 2017; New York, NY, USA; New York Knicks general manager Phil Jackson watches during the second quarter against the Washington Wizards at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports /
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Phil Jackson, the man with 11 NBA rings, was brought into Madison Square Garden to change the culture of the New York Knicks to winning again. Well, he has done the exact opposite

The New York Knicks hired Jackson in the spring of 2014, and it has been awful since. After putting pen to paper with the legendary coach (turned President), the Knicks have a whopping and pathetic 32 percent winning percentage.

That’s horrible. What makes matters worse is the Knicks will most likely only have had ONE top 5 pick in the process, and no top 3 picks.

So the Knicks under Phil have been horrible, we get that. He wasn’t given much to begin with, so we will give him somewhat of a pass.

What has he done to rebuild though?

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Well for starters, he actually traded some assets away in J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert. The unfortunate part of this is that he literally got *insert four letter word meaning fecal matter here* in return. Alright, he made one bad trade and got burned, not the worst part, right? Having the two traded players win a title stings a little, but I mean that was kinda was expected.

What has he done in free agency?

Now we look at what Phil has done with some contracts. He gave Carmelo Anthony a max contract a couple years ago, which is fine. He deserves it for what he has endured in his NY tenure.

The problem is that he gave Carmelo Anthony a no-trade clause which Melo has to waive in order for him to be dealt – we will touch on later.

He also signed Robin Lopez, who would be a solid player for a season, only to be dealt to acquire Derrick Rose. This time, this traded actually benefitted New York. It clears cap this offseason and gave more minutes to Kristaps Porzingis and Willy Hernangomez.

The most pathetic thing Phil has done yet was the signing of the 31-year-old, injury-prone Joakim Noah to a contract with NO option until 2020. The best part is Noah will be making $18M a year on average. Between Melo and Noah alone, on a horrible team with no true young talent outside of two bigs, NYK has about $46M logged between two 32-year-old vets way past their prime.

In summary, Phil has given out a couple of bad contracts, made one really bad trade and a pretty fair one, and has failed to acquire any real assets for the future.

Sure, the Knicks – and Jackson – have made a few solid undrafted free agents signings, but none of those players will settle for anything more than role players. The Knicks have also failed to effectively tank.

They actually made an effort to get better this past offseason with a clearly superior team in Cleveland who, even if New York got Kevin Durant, they would still most likely lose to in five games.

New York was bad all year, but decided to beat the 76ers on the final day of the regular season, the Bulls a few days before and the Heat before that.

If they would’ve lost those three games, they would be in position for the 4th overall pick. MASSIVE difference than the 7th pick (pending the NBA Draft Lottery results) they currently own.

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It really has all came crashing down for the New York Knicks.

Whether they can actually sell Melo, even for a few age 25 and under players or an another first-rounder will really decide their future for the next half a decade. The truth is that Phil Jackson has been horrible in his short tenure in New York, and it’s in Dolan’s best interest to fire him.

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