After another horrendous start to the season, the New York Knicks have fired head coach David Fizdale and assistant coach Keith Smart.
Fizdale signed a 4 year deal with New York in the 2018 offseason to be the team’s head coach. Despite being a 2 time champion being an assistant coach with the Miami Heat and coaching alongside Erik Spoelstra, things didn’t work out as well in New York. Fizdale coached the Knicks to a 21-81 record in his 2 seasons with the team. The season before that, the Knicks won 29 games.
Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that assistant coach and former G-League COTY Mike Miller is the interim Head Coach; likely to be replaced this offseason.
While many – including the Knicks – may be quick to direct the team’s recent failures onto Fizdale; there’s a much bigger issue holding back NY which is the constant failures of management.
Fizdale may have not been the strongest of coaches and leaders – and especially not a good fit for this team – but he is far from the primary issue for this franchise.
The Knicks have arguably (might be a fact at this point) the WORST owner in the entire NBA, James Dolan. Many people have heard the term, “Basketball is a Business” and that is something that James Dolan lives by!
As most (if not all) sports fans know, Madison Square Garden is THE most famous arena in the World. So, for the Knicks, attendance is never usually a problem. In James Dolan’s case, despite the Knicks being a horrible team for the past 2 decades (with the exception of the early 2010’s), he’s still making a pretty good amount of money off of the New York Knicks franchise.
This leads to many Knicks fans to believe that Dolan doesn’t really care too much about the team, and more about the money.
And for the times that Dolan has made decisions (or tried to make decisions) it either backfired, or didn’t benefit the Knicks organization at all!
Dating back to 2004, James Dolan made the horrible decision of getting rid of announcer Marv Albert, who was the Knicks announcer for 37 years, and might have one of the best voices for announcing in sports history.
In the 2010 Free Agency, he cleared up salary cap space to make a push to potentially sign Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and Lebron James as their top 3 options. Other players they had a chance at were Joe Johnson, David Lee, Amar’e Stoudemire, Carlos Boozer, Ray Allen Paul Pierce, and Dirk Nowitzki.
Well, they managed to sign one of those players listed. The Knicks signed Amar’e stoudemire. Due to injuries, Stoudemire only played 47 games in the 2011-2012 season and 29 games in the 2012-2013 season, while Lebron Wade and Bosh won back to back titles in Miami.
In 2012, the Knicks had the option to sign a 39 year old Jason Kidd, and end of prime but still great Deron Williams, and Goran Dragic, who was at the start of his prime. The Knicks decided to chose Jason Kidd. He retired the season later.
In 2016, the Knicks signed defensive force Joakim Noah to a 4 year, $72 million deal ($18 million a year). The only problem was, he was coming off of an injury that debatably could’ve changed his career for good. Turns out, that ended up being the case. And the Knicks were stuck with that contract for a couple seasons.
Last season, the Knicks traded their potential centerpiece for the future to clear up cap space for free agency, Kristaps Porzingis. They traded Porzingis for Dennis Smith Jr., Deandre Jordan, Wesley Matthews, and 2 future first round picks.
Well, they bought out Matthews, and Deandre Jordan left in free agency. So, the Knicks pretty much got Dennis Smith jr and 2 first rounders for one of the best power forwards in the NBA, Kristaps Porzingis. For now, the Mavericks won this trade by a mile; but, we can only wait to see where those first round picks will end up.
2019 free agency time! The Knicks made a push for Kemba Walker, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and Kawhi Leonard. There was a rumor before the first round of the playoffs that Durant and New York had already secretly made a deal. When Durant got injured in the NBA finals, The Knicks withdrew from negotiations with him.
He and Kyrie went to team up in Brooklyn, Kemba decides to go to Boston, and Kawhi wanted no part of New York and signed with the Clippers in Los Angeles.
So, what’s New York left with? Julius Randle. After free agency, the Knicks had and still have 6 power forwards!
Some possible candidates for the next Knicks head coach are Mark Jackson, Sam Cassell, Jeff Van Gundy, Ime Udoka, and Tyronn Lue, but the new Head Coach of the Knicks may have no success if the management continues their constant incompetence.
It is completely unfair to blame the Head Coach before the front office in this situation – but unfortunately for Knicks fans, the blindness of their horrid owner and management will just continue to get worse and worse.
