Woj's take.
As Jackson publicly pushed for Carmelo Anthony to waive his no-trade clause and accept a move out of New York on Friday and disparaged coach Jeff Hornacek’s connectivity to the locker room, a bigger issue emerged: Kristaps Porzingis made a stand about the unprofessionalism and routine chaos that has lorded over his work environment.
Porzingis passed on the exit interviews, as ESPN’s Ian Begley first reported, and league sources say Porzingis is planning a long trip back to Latvia that may not include a return to New York until closer to the start of training camp.
Porzingis isn’t alone. Players are privately fuming that they want no part of the organization’s summer slate of triangle offense regimen at the team’s suburban New York practice facility, league sources told The Vertical. In reality, there’s an open rebellion to the triangle – for the offense itself, and by extension, the discord and dysfunction that its implementation has burdened upon everyone.
It isn’t only Jackson’s laborious organizational emails about the triangle – demands of emphasis on schooling players on the reverse pivot move, or the proper passing techniques – but his increasing insistence on the coaching staff and players that the obsolete offense become fully functional for the 2017-18 season.
Inside and outside the Knicks, people see a franchise in disrepair: Jackson’s open war with Anthony, the failed trade for Derrick Rose and the $72 million contract albatross of a broken-down Joakim Noah. Players grumble of a support staff that is far more concerned about creating an illusion of hard work with management and ownership than facilitating winning, a media-relations staff that is suffocating and intrusive, and a management/coaching dynamic that’s made Hornacek look like a puppet.
After his first season as Knicks coach, Hornacek is still trying to incorporate a system that is foreign to him, armed with a Jackson-installed assistant coach, Kurt Rambis, who is beyond unpopular with the players, league sources said. When players want coaching and teaching, they get yelling, sources said. Most wonder about Rambis’ allegiances, because after all, he’s Jackson’s guy, not Hornacek’s.
He may not have made the terrible moves Isiah Thomas did, but in terms of meddling and making things dysfunctional, he's certainly bad - arguably just as bad - in his own way.
As I've said before, the bewildering part about it is that he's had to deal with dysfunctional and meddling management before. Perhaps he think it's different if he does it, because he's the Zen Master, the eleven-time champion and Guru of Winning in the NBA. If so, it would seem he's mistaken, and he's become the very thing he always railed against. I suppose that old quote from
The Dark Knight about dying a hero or living long enough to become the villain is as applicable in the real New York as it is in the fictional Gotham; just replace "dying" with "retiring", and "living long enough" with "making the transition from the sidelines to the front office".
Ham-fisted pop culture references aside, as you might expect, the Players Union
isn't happy about his remarks regarding Carmelo Anthony.
“We voiced with the Commissioner today our view on the inappropriate comments by Knicks President Phil Jackson. If players cannot, under threat of league discipline, speak openly about their desire to be employed elsewhere, we expect management to adhere to the same standards. The door swings both ways when it comes to demonstrating loyalty and respect.”
Fair call, I'd say.