Pro Basketball Knicks Turn to Jackson to Resuscitate the Team By SCOTT CACCIOLAMARCH 14, 2014 A huge rebuilding project will soon begin in Midtown Manhattan, where the Knicks have turned to Phil Jackson, a former coach with unrivaled credentials, to run the front office and restore order to the shambles at Madison Square Garden.Jackson, part of the Knicks’ championship era as a player in the early 1970s, will be introduced as the team’s president on Tuesday, according to two people in the N.B.A. with knowledge of the discussions. A Knicks spokesman declined to comment. The team released a statement that said a major announcement would be made Tuesday. Jackson’s spadework has built marvels before — he won 11 N.B.A. championships as coach of the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers. This time, he will need a backhoe. He has never held a position in a front office, let alone run one, and his first assignment is a doozy: resuscitating the Knicks after years of mismanagement. Despite having the league’s second-highest payroll, the Knicks have labored to a 26-40 record ahead of Saturday’s game against the Milwaukee Bucks. Though their current five-game winning streak has kept them in contention for a playoff spot in the woeful Eastern Conference, the Knicks could miss the postseason for the seventh time in the last 10 years.The negotiations between Jackson and the Knicks have dragged on, and a news conference scheduled for Tuesday morning leaves time for both sides to make last-minute demands. But if Jackson takes the reins, he will inherit a group of aging players and mismatched parts, with one superstar, Carmelo Anthony, who plans to opt out of his contract and explore free agency this summer. Mike Woodson, in his third season as the coach, could be on his way out, and the team has traded away several future draft picks. Jackson, 68, has the highest winning percentage for a coach in league history (.704), along with the most playoff victories (229). He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007. But from the start, his role with the Knicks — and especially his relationship with James L. Dolan, the Knicks’ owner — will be fraught with intrigue. Dolan has a reputation for being highly involved in personnel matters. He meddles. He overrules. And he has been known to drive away some of his more high-profile employees, including Donnie Walsh, who as the team president objected to the 2011 deal that brought Anthony to the Knicks in exchange for rotation players and several of those future draft picks. Walsh is back with the Indiana Pacers, a team with championship aspirations, as a consultant for basketball operations. Jackson is known for his candor. He talks about his Zen philosophies. He shares his opinions. He has written several books, including “The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul,” about the 2003-4 Lakers. In the book, Jackson was open about the inner workings of the team. (He criticized the perennial All-Star Kobe Bryant, though they have built a close relationship.) No member of the Dolan-led Knicks has enjoyed that kind of independence, literary or otherwise, and it remains to be seen how much will be afforded Jackson. It is also unclear how much time Jackson will spend in New York and on the road engaged with the minutiae of management: scouting players, preparing for the draft, weighing the salary cap, examining advanced analytics. Running a team is not an easy job, and Jackson has a history of health concerns. In any case, it seems likely that the Knicks will supply him with a staff to do much of his legwork. He is expected to command a salary between $10 million and $15 million a year. More than anything, Jackson brings instant gravitas and credibility to a franchise sorely in need of both. Dolan has cycled through six coaches since 2004, obsessive in his quest for quick-fix solutions. He made another seemingly impulsive move on the eve of training camp in September, when he hired Steve Mills to replace Glen Grunwald as the team’s general manager. Now, with Jackson joining the Knicks, Mills is ceding his position heading the team’s basketball operations after about five months. In another twist, it was Mills who initially met with Jackson to discuss a role with the team, according to a person in the N.B.A. with knowledge of the discussions. The level of autonomy Jackson will have in personnel matters was probably an important topic in his negotiations with Dolan, who has seldom, if ever, relinquished much control. Dolan also has notoriously restrictive policies when it comes to dealing with the news media — he has granted one interview about the Knicks in seven years — and generally requires his executives to sign nondisclosure agreements as a condition of employment. Staffers sit in on interviews with players and the coach (assistants are off limits) and take notes on the questions that are asked. Todd Musburger, Jackson’s longtime agent, could not be reached for comment. The big decisions will come quickly, beginning this off-season, when Jackson will have to deal with Anthony’s impending free agency. The Knicks can offer Anthony the most lucrative contract — five years and $129 million — under the terms of the N.B.A.’s collective bargaining agreement, and Mills made clear in the preseason that he intended to do everything he could to keep Anthony. That was one reason Dolan hired Mills, who is closely connected to Creative Artists Agency, the group that represents Anthony and several other members of the organization. Now, it could be up to Jackson to persuade Anthony to stay, assuming Jackson believes it is the best move for the club. He has been critical of the Knicks. In 2012, he told HBO’s “Real Sports” that they were a “little bit of a clumsy team” and cited the pairing of Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire as particularly flawed. Stoudemire, who has battled knee injuries, is in the fourth year of a five-year deal worth $100 million. Jackson won championships with star players like Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal and Bryant. He is now the caretaker of a roster with considerably less talent, and with little flexibility in the immediate future to make sweeping changes. “There’s just too much work that has to be done with that team,” Jackson said of the Knicks in 2012, adding: “Stoudemire’s a really good player. But he’s got to play in a certain system and a way. Carmelo has to be a better passer. And the ball can’t stop every time it hits his hands. They need to have someone come in that can kind of blend that group together.” Jackson is coming to the Knicks despite having deep ties to the Lakers, whom he coached from 1999 to 2004 and again from 2005 to 2011. Jackson, who has a home in Los Angeles and a ranch in Montana, is engaged to Jeanie Buss, who is in charge of the Lakers’ business operations. Dolan had pursued Jackson twice before, both times for the team’s coaching position — in 1999 and again in 2005, when Isiah Thomas was running the front office. Since leaving the Lakers in 2011, Jackson had done some informal consulting work for the Detroit Pistons, but he was eager to return to the league in a more official capacity. With the Knicks, Jackson’s journey through the N.B.A. is coming full circle. He began his playing career with the team, which drafted him in 1967. As a gangly, defense-minded player coming off the bench, he was part of the Knicks’ only championship era, which produced titles in 1970 and 1973. Somehow, some way, amid considerable skepticism, he will now try to produce another one. A version of this article appears in print on March 15, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Knicks Turn to Jackson to Resuscitate the Team . Order Reprints|Todays Paper|Subscribe
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 04:58:44 +0000
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