Whether or not he could have succeeded under such circumstances, the New York Knicks never truly supported head coach Jeff Hornacek.
The New York Knicks didn’t wait long to part ways with head coach Jeff Hornacek. Immediately following the conclusion of the 2017-18 NBA regular season, Hornacek was informed that the Knicks will not be bringing him back for the third and final year on his contract.
While many will argue that it was an appropriate decision, it shouldn’t go unnoticed that Hornacek was never equipped with the necessary tools for success.
Some might call this an exaggeration, but the reality of Hornacek’s tenure is that he was doomed from the start. He was hired by a team president who wanted to run a system that Hornacek had never played in or executed himself.
Throughout Hornacek’s first season as head coach of the Knicks, Phil Jackson’s insistence that he run the triangle offense undermined the attempts to implement a system of his own.
That briefly made Hornacek a sympathetic figure, but the sympathy turned to apathy in no time at all. Carmelo Anthony reportedly cursed out the head coach in front of young and impressionable players, and Joakim Noah allegedly did the same.
The context: Anthony had been goaded by Jackson—not Hornacek—through the media for months on end, and Noah was frustrated by his limited role.
Anthony, of course, was in the midst of a season during which his borderline nonexistent effort on defense was criticized by even his most rabid of supporters. Noah, meanwhile, earned a 20-game suspension for taking performance enhancing drugs.
On a roster that was constructed by individuals other than Hornacek, Noah’s 20-game absence inevitably created an uphill battle for playing time.
Jackson signed Kyle O’Quinn and drafted Willy Hernangomez—both of whom are traditional centers with average-at-best athleticism. Jackson’s replacement, current general manager Scott Perry, traded Anthony for another true center: Enes Kanter.
With four stationary centers on the roster, Noah’s minutes were inevitably limited as he attempted to overcome the effects of an absence that was of his own doing.
If the logjam at center weren’t enough to damage Hornacek’s relationship with his players, the lack of talent at point guard would sell fans on the narrative that he couldn’t cut it. In 2016-17, Hornacek’s options were Derrick Rose, Brandon Jennings, and Chasson Randle.
For perspective: Rose has played for two teams in 2017-18, Jennings began the season in China, and Randle is playing in Spain.
In 2017-18, Hornacek was given a new crop of point guards: Jarrett Jack, Frank Ntilikina, and Ramon Sessions. Jack was a 34-year-old veteran coming off of a severe knee injury, Sessions had missed at least 32 games in two of the past three seasons, and Ntilikina was a rookie.
Furthermore: For a second consecutive season, Hornacek was tasked with building an offense with point guards who couldn’t shoot the three-ball.
The only one of Hornacek’s point guards who could consistently get past the first defender was Rose, who bordered on refusing to pass. The only one of Hornacek’s four demanding centers who could defend at an adequate level was O’Quinn, who has never averaged more than 18.0 minutes per game.
The lone player who could argue the latter point was Noah, who got himself suspended and thus missed out on the opportunity to partake in the battle for playing time.
When Hornacek played the center whom Perry traded the franchise player to acquire, the fans blamed him for not finding minutes for his carbon copy. When the front office traded that very player for pennies on the dollar, fans again blamed Hornacek.
Regardless of what transpired and who was truly to blame, Hornacek took the brunt of the criticism from Knicks fans and media members.
Furthermore, injuries did more to define the 2017-18 regular season than just about anything else. Both of the Knicks’ two leading scorers missed at least 25 games, with franchise player Kristaps Porzingis suffering a season-ending knee injury in early February.
Even when Porzingis was healthy, it was Tim Hardaway Jr. who missed a stretch of 20 consecutive games between December and January.
Some may call that an excuse, but the Knicks outscored opponents by 5.1 points per 100 possessions when Hardaway and Porzingis shared the floor. Considering this was the first season during which Hardaway and Porzingis had ever played together, that’s an astonishing figure.
Unfortunately, there were only 729 possessions during which Hardaway and Porzingis actually shared the court.
Even if the injuries hadn’t transpired, the reality is that Hornacek was doomed from the start—and both front office regimes deserve some measure of blame. Jackson undermined Hornacek, thus preventing him from earning the respect of his players.
Perry failed to provide Hornacek with the illusion of job security, thus making the process of getting players to buy in a borderline impossibility.
When players don’t believe that a coach has leverage, they’ll try their chances at undermining him or her themselves. That’s exactly what transpired with Hornacek, as he never truly had the support of the front office.
Whether or not you believe Hornacek could have been the individual to lead the Knicks back to relevance, a coach without the backing of the general manager is doomed from the start.
Must Read: Five rumored candidates to replace Jeff Hornacek
Due to the actions and inactions of the front office, Jeff Hornacek was destined to fail as head coach of the New York Knicks.
Everything that transpired along the way simply delayed the inevitable.