Phil Jackson’s Endorsement of Kurt Rambis Could Spell Doom for Knicks

Is this the Apocalypse? Phil Jackson is giving an endorsement to New York Knicks interim head coach Kurt Rambis…

The “Zen Master” Phil Jackson recently gave an endorsement to interim head coach Kurt Rambis… who currently has a 5-9 record with the New York Knicks after Derek Fisher was fired.

Despite the horrific record, Jackson is not giving up on another triangle offense protege, as per Marc Berman of the New York Post. Stating a couple of intangibles attributes that wins just can not qualify (apparently…-_-“).

"“He’s got a way of handling players. He’s relaxed but has ability to keep them focused on the important parts of it. We’ll see how it goes.’’“He knows the ins and outs,’’“What has pleased me, we have a relationship where he’ll call up and say, ‘What do you think about that game or a substitution pattern? Or at the end of the Boston game, I need to know.’ We have a relationship that’s much more tight. Having tried to create autonomy for Derek separated me from the direct contact.”"

Soooo basically Rambis is Jackson’s puppet… He wants to have a direct line of communication, a working relationship… Be able to talk about the end of games, like against the Boston Celtics.

Okay! LET”S TALK about the end of the Celtics game… it was a masterpiece of awful late-game execution… A demonstration of exactly what NOT to do…

This is straight from my recap.

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And a couple possessions before this thing of beauty (barf)… with a one-point lead and just over a minute remaining in the game, Rambis in all his infinite wisdom decided to not have his second-leading scorer, Krsitaps Porzingis on the floor… Instead, Rambis had the Knicks waste a whole possession trying to get the ball to Carmelo Anthony. When Jose Calderon finally realized that Anthony was too well covered, and passed the ball to Robin Lopez – he was too far out for his comfort… and ended up taking an awful hook-shot with the shot clock dwindling down.

After the game Rambis even took full responsibility for the awful final possession of the game.

"“I couldn’t get them organized,’’“A lot of confusion out there. That’s on me not having enough timeouts. I feel bad for the guys. They did so many good things.’’"

YEAH PHIL, you should talk to Rambis about this… and instead of giving him a possible endorsement for next year as head coach, this should be the PERFECT example of why he shouldn’t be the head coach next season!

Instead Jackson is saying things like this…

"“We have to see growth for next season. I have to see if this team moves or doesn’t move with what goes on [the rest of the] season. I think he’s perfectly capable of doing that,”"

Or something even more absurd like this…

"“He’s a defensive-oriented guy. I had him as defensive coordinator for my teams in 2007-2009. I think he has a good handle on that part.’’“We talked many times over the past four, five years about the obvious record created behind his coaching in Minnesota [that] puts a black mark on his coaching ability.”"

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Rambis has a record of 56-145 as a head coach, a winning percentage of 27.9%. The last time Rambis was a head coach was for the Minnesota Timberwolves, where he amassed a record of 32-132 from 2009-2011. In which his teams were TERRIBLE defensively…

In 2009-2010 Minnesota gave up 107.8 points a game, the second-most in the league that season. They also were 25th in the Association in opponent field goal percentage allowed, at 48%. The next season, Rambis followed it up with having THE WORST defense in the league… allowing 107.7 points per game, while allowing opponents to shot 46.8% from the field, which was 22nd in the NBA…

Despite all this… Rambis does not want to be judged by his record this season… or previous seasons… as per Frank Isola of the New York Daily News.

"“We’re all judged by our record,”“Sometimes that’s right and sometimes that’s extremely wrong.”“You’ve got some coaches in the league who had and have great records win-losses wise, but they may not be doing as good a coaching job as somebody who had a poor record,”“The circumstances are different, the talent is different. You have to look at each individual situation and look what was going on and measure a coach by what you see out there on the court, what the players are doing and what are they capable of doing and not just wins and losses.”"

This is insane… yes, different circumstances creates different situations. Their was no false hope of the Knicks winning a NBA Championship… but at the very least… New York could stand to improve… Which is something that Rambis is doing… under his leadership… the Knicks are arguably worse off than with Fisher… If not slightly better or worse, trending the other way…

There is no way that Rambis should return next season… there are so many potential untapped coaching candidates out there… ANYONE IS BETTER THAN RAMBIS!

If the continuous horrible end-game execution is not enough to get him booted… how about the regression of Porzingis… The Latvian was in a competitive race for the Rookie of the Year award early on… but since has dropped of drastically… Some of it has to do with Rambis’ rotations…

Next: Kristaps Porzingis is Set to be a Highly Sought After Sneaker Free Agent

GET RID OF THIS GUY PHIL!