This season we have seen the New York Knicks start hot and finish poorly, come out slow and end strong but be gassed to pull out a victory; regardless, the matter of fact is this team can't win games. You can't win at home and your surely not winning away from MSG. The blame game is all over the place but the first place we should look is at the head coach, Derek Fisher. This is Fisher's first cameo at coaching and the entire world can tell. Besides the obvious lack of talent that surrounds New York's centerpiece in Carmelo Anthony, the coaching has not been up to par for my standards. Playing in the triangle for years of course you will know it however; installing it brand new with a group of guys and personalities that you've never encountered as their leader is something entirely different. While team President Phil Jackson is in the ear of the head coach he is still not the head coach. This is definitely not the 2006 Miami Heat and Phil Jackson will not be pulling a Pat Riley nor why should he as this team will have him returning money and heading back to Montana quicker than a New York minute. Now just a year removed from the hardwood to a clipboard is this too much for Derek Fisher?
I believe the aspect of coaching was a bit more than Fisher could have imagined. The product that he was given is even more of a disadvantage to excel as a head coach. Even with some better talent available in the near future, it's hard to say if the Knicks still would even buy into a guy who hasn't proved anything as a coach. A darn good player as he was primarily a second tier player to Kobe/Shaq, Kobe/Gasol, and most recent Durant/Westbrook, but the guy knows how to run and play the triangle offense. However their is a difference in playing in the triangle compared to coaching the triangle. When you have players who have repeatedly said, "the triangle is difficult to learn" your job just became that much more difficult. Coming from the Mike Woodson era of pass it to Melo and just watch to now the ball moving until it finds Melo and just watch are basically the same methods. Fisher and his staff first has to realize it is hard changing the game that your quote "polished" players have developed over their career to a your style of playing. Now with reports from ESPN's Chris Broussard stating tension between Anthony and Tim Hardaway Jr as well as frustration in the locker room with all Knicks players, this has become a bigger combustion than the first year coach signed the bottoms line for. The games I have watched Fisher just basically preaches to his team in huddles compared to correcting them or placing them in the positions they need to be. Not to much of an enthusiast, however his facial expressions remind you of what he is dealing with on nightly basis. Phil Jackson provides his take as well as surrounded Fisher with some former head and assistant coaches to assist him in teaching the triangle, but majority of the blame will find its way to the head coach.
Being said, once again the story in New York seems to be another head coach that either cannot coach nor have enough talent to coach with. Mike Woodson, Mike D'antoni, Isaiah Thomas, Lenny Wilkens, Larry Brown;I think you get the point. Not since Jeff Van Gundy have the Knicks really been a model of consistency when it comes to winning. With Van Gundy now on television and Fisher inked for several more years the Knicks will just have to do with what they have. Despite their horrific and a franchise worst record to start a season; most in New York knew this season was an evaluation and beginning stages of a process to rebuild the team, just who would have thought it would have imploded to this. We knew the transition from player to coach overnight would have its growing pains, although with the Knicks it seems to be more pain than growth. Nobody is buying into the system and if that reflects on the players it transcends to the coach as well. As that continues the results will remain the same, (4) total wins and losers of (9) straight. Lack of responsibility, lack of liability, and just plain old lack of accountability hinders this team. Whether the pond is too big or the fish is too small one thing is for certain; the ship is sinking quick, fast, and in a hurry for the Orange and Blue.
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