The New York Knicks had one of the most convoluted free agencies in the league. They were busy, trading for Derrick Rose, signing Joakim Noah, Brandon Jennings, and Courtney Lee. Whether their busy summer will eventually work out remains to be seen, but no one can say they didn’t try.
While many have questions about how this team fits together, team president Phil Jackson seems a lot more optimistic. Jackson appeared on Shaquille O’Neal’s podcast earlier this week and expressed hope that his master plan will work well (transcript via Steve Popper of USA Today):
“We talked about, in our initial meeting [of camp], about the fact that this is all handpicked,” Jackson told O’Neal. “This is a handpicked team. They all fit together in a way in which — we haven’t had this opportunity since I’ve been in New York. A lot of it was we simply had players who were here because of the past administration. And this is the first time we had an opportunity to not only get players, but also have money to go out and solicit players off the free-agent market.”
More specifically, Jackson talked about the decision to trade for Rose and sign Noah:
“Both [Rose and Noah], I think, have some career left, even though they’ve had injuries, and it’s what they call risk-reward,” Jackson said. “What was the risk and what was the reward? And I felt it was a minimal risk and a great reward if we were able to put together a good team. Bringing Jeff Hornacek in as a coach, who wants to play a pretty fast pace, and having guards that can play that pace, benefited our style.”
This is where things get dicey. Rose is mostly a low-risk addition on the court, seeing as he’s a free agent next summer and the Knicks can move on. But Jackson traded for him knowing full well that the point guard is in the midst of a lengthy and strange lawsuit for alleged sexual assault.
Noah, meanwhile, has none of those off-the-court issues. But he is older, has been injured for the past few seasons, and has been on a steady decline for years. The Knicks gave him a massive four-year deal. That’s not what I call low-risk.
Phil Jackson clearly felt that he needed to put a competitive roster together and he may have done that with two proven players. But he’s not building a contender and he’s not building for the future. Things are weird in New York.
