NEW YORK CITY, NY – The New York Knicks started off last season with Derek Fisher as their head coach. New York hoped Fisher had finished with his growing pains as a coach, following the franchise’s worst season (17-65) in team history back in 2014-15. Unfortunately, Fisher was canned after a 23-31 start to last season’s campaign. Kurt Rambis stepped in as head coach to finish off the year, and posted an unimpressive 9-19 record.
There had been speculation that Rambis could be the solution moving forward for the Knicks. However when taking a look back at Rambis’ body of work, it looked more apparent that New York would be moving in a different direction. For a Knick franchise that has experienced very short glimmers of success in the past couple decades, New York needed a winner to handle the reigns. In Rambis’ only two full seasons coaching with the Minnesota Timberwolves, his highest win total was 17.
Frank Vogel and Tom Thibodeau were two names that Knick faithful had hoped to land as their potential next head coach. Thibodeau had even voiced that New York would have been his “dream job”.
Source close to Tom Thibodeau: “The #Knicks are the job he’s always wanted. He would crawl to Madison Square Garden.”
— Ian O’Connor (@Ian_OConnor) February 8, 2016
These two coaches have both had their share of success in the NBA, and would’ve been the perfect fit to instill a winning pedigree within the Knicks organization.
Phil Jackson thought otherwise and surprised many with the hiring of Jeff Hornacek as the Knicks’ next head coach. Hornacek was known for being a very smart player with a high basketball IQ under Jerry Sloan. Jackson had been quoted speaking in high regard of Sloan, and attributing Hornacek’s success to Sloan.
As for Jeff Hornacek: Phil Jackson is said to be a longtime admirer of Jerry Sloan’s ways and so a fan of Hornacek, who thrived under Sloan.
— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) May 19, 2016
Hornacek was fired as the Phoenix Suns head coach mid-way through last season, and posted a 101-112 record in two and a half seasons with the Suns. The first season Hornacek coached was his best with Phoenix back in 2013-14. Hornacek had a 48-34 record in the very competitive Western Conference.
In that first season, Hornacek was responsible for a 23 game improvement from the 2012-13 season (25-57). This is encouraging for Knick fans, because Hornacek has been in a rebuilding situation before and seen early success. Many believe that Hornacek was not responsible for the Suns struggles, due to most of his talent (Isaiah Thomas, Goran Dragic, Markeef and Marcus Morris) being shipped to different teams.
The thing that Knick faithful need to happy about, is the fact that Hornacek will provide a much more up-tempo offense. Over the past couple seasons, the Knicks have been one of the slowest teams in the league. Just last season, the Knicks averaged only 8.4 fast-break points per game.
The fast-break is where better teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Cleveland Cavaliers thrive, and create more scoring opportunities outside of their offensive sets. New York has shown that they have struggled scoring, so an adjustment to the tempo could prove to be necessary and effective. The style of basketball is changing to be a much faster game, and Jackson may be trying to get with the program with this Hornacek hire.
Carmelo Anthony voiced in an interview last Saturday on WNBC-TV that, “Everybody knows he likes to play an up-tempo pace of game, likes to get out in transition, likes to speed the game up a lot. So from that standpoint, I’ll definitely be looking forward to that.” To have your franchise player buying in on the possible changes is a very good sign moving forward.
Hornacek may not be the “sexy” hire that Knick fans may have hoped for, but the hire provides hope that the Knicks are ready to change their offensive style with the current times. With that change, Hornacek will hope to bring the Knicks to the playoffs for the first time since the 2012-13 season.
Barry Holmes is a Senior Writer for PureSportsNY.com. Follow him on Twitter @BHO732
(Featured Photo Credit: Christian Petersen/Getty Images)