Over one year since Phil Jackson’s run in the New York Knicks front office ended, let’s look back at some of his transactions.
In 2014, the New York Knicks hired Phil Jackson to become their president of basketball operations. A headline-making move at the time, Jackson achieved success as a head coach with the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers.
So, in a front office role, no one knew how Jackson’s time would pan out. Was a title on the way in New York? Might a big-name talent arrive to add star power?
Well, after three seasons, the Knicks removed Jackson from his role at the top of the front office. This featured losing, head coach changes, a public battle with Carmelo Anthony, and the eagerness to trade Kristaps Porzingis after the 2016-17 season. The Ringer profiled the timeline of this interesting run in Big Apple history.
Jackson never carried his Bulls and Lakers success to New York, and it made this stint a disappointment. There was hype around the potential of a Basketball Hall of Famer at the forefront of everything, especially someone considered one of the game’s greatest coaches and a former Knick.
Though, it resulted in more controversy and negativity than anything, after a multi-year run of playoff appearances and positivity. Anthony, Amar’e Stoudmire and Tyson Chandler put this organization into a mini golden age, given the issues the teams of the 2000’s experienced.
So, once everything in Jackson’s tenure went down, it left the Knicks set for another rebuild, one they could not do through free agency alone.
Not everything Jackson did was bad, but most of it did not garner the Knicks much sympathy. What were some of his best and worst moves as the president of basketball operations? Let’s take a look.
Worst: Signing Joakim Noah to a four-year deal
The 2016 offseason became a landmark summer for the NBA, as the salary cap spiked from $70 million to $94 million. An incredible jump, it provided teams ample space to hand out contracts to the players they coveted. Though, plenty of those deals were questionable and cause lingering effects in 2018.
So, in 2016, Phil Jackson, with this cap space, used a chunk of it on Joakim Noah for four years, $72 million.
An accomplished player with the Chicago Bulls, Noah won the 2013-14 Defensive Player of the Year award and averaged a double-double in four seasons. However, injuries limited him to just 29 games and two starts in the 2015-16 season, with just 4.3 points and a 38.3 percent mark from the field.
With the New York Knicks, Noah never reached this contract’s expectations, despite averaging 8.8 rebounds. He only played 22.1 minutes per game and put up 5 points. This came in just 46 games, due to a left knee injury and a 20-game suspension.
2017-18 was worse. With Jackson fired, the Knicks were still in for three years of Noah. Head coach Jeff Hornack only used him in seven games, before an eventual one-day stint in the G League and exile from the organization.
Now, with a new general manager and head coach in place, Noah remains part of the Knicks. Whether he plays another game for them or not, it’s still one of, if not, the worst move in Jackson’s tenure.
Best: Drafting Kristaps Porzingis
The Joakim Noah signing proved disastrous, but Phil Jackson found success in the NBA Draft for the New York Knicks. This was highlighted in 2015, when he selected Kristaps Porzingis, a Latvian big name that acted as the draft’s international man of mystery.
Of course Knicks fans jeered the Porzingis selection on draft night, as the team missed on the top three picks — Karl-Anthony Towns, D’Angelo Russell and Jahlil Okafor — and a popular name, Emmanuel Mudiay, remained on the board.
Well, Porzingis managed to cure doubts of his abilities immediately. His rookie campaign featured 14.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game in 72 starts, as the Robin to Carmelo Anthony’s Batman and a much-needed youthful presence on a rebuilding team.
Porzingis took another jump in year two, with 18.1 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2 blocks per game. The Knicks had a budding star on their hands, in the bright lights of New York City, and someone to take the reigns in the post-Carmelo Anthony era, which began in 2017-18.
Porzingis was on his way to a career year, averaging 22.7 points and earning a spot in the 2018 All-Star game. A torn ACL just days before, though, took him out for the rest of the season.
While Jackson only saw two years of the Porzingis experiment, he still made this selection amidst criticism and watched it pan out. It’s arguably the best move of his three seasons in New York.
Worst: The return package for JR Smith and Iman Shumpert
Phil Jackson found success in the draft, but his trades did not receive acclaim. A few marquee ones were made, but none of them panned out for the New York Knicks, especially the January 2015 trade of JR Smith and Iman Shumpert.
The Knicks brought Jackson on near the end of the 2013-14 season, so he was in the midst of changing this team to his liking and trying to clear space for free agency. So, about halfway through 2014-15, he sent Smith and Shumpert to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Lance Thomas, Lou Amundson, Alex Kirk and a 2019 second round pick.
This package underwhelmed, even in a roster space-clearing move. Thomas remains with the team but does not have a major role, Amundson was strictly a role player in the frontcourt, Kirk never found steady ground in the NBA and the pick was acquired five years in advance. For impactful backcourt players Smith and Shumpert, it did not seem the Knicks received a proper return.
Meanwhile, Smith and Shumpert became quality role players on teams that went to the NBA Finals from 2015-18 (Shumpert was around until 2017), and they won the 2016 championship.
Cleveland succeeded in this deal, when they gave up almost nothing for players who helped them win. New York no longer has Amundson and Kirk, and the 2019 pick will finally convey in June 2019.
Best: Signing Courtney Lee
Yes, Phil Jackson kept Carmelo Anthony in a New York Knicks uniform, but handed him a full no-trade clause in 2015. This proved costly when the front office wanted Anthony out and he did not want to leave.
Well, in 2016, Jackson made a positive signing, when he brought Courtney Lee in on a four-year, $48 million contract. That offseason opened the floodgates on the salary cap, so the price to sign Lee was higher than it would have been in 2015.
However, with a reputation as a solid starter that did a little bit of everything, the veteran guard’s cost was not excessive.
Jackson only saw the first season of Lee’s run, but it proved quality, with 10.8 points, 3.4 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.1 steals per game on 45.6 percent shooting and 40 percent from three-point range.
In year two, after Jackson was out, Lee went for 12 points and similar numbers in the other departments, along with another 40 percent mark from behind the arc.
Nothing spectacular, sure, but Lee provided a stable force while the team dealt with adversity, including injuries to Tim Hardaway Jr. and Kristaps Porzingis, and the first year without Carmelo Anthony.
Lee will enter year three with the Knicks in 2018-19, with this and one more year left on his deal.
Worst: The return package for Tyson Chandler and Raymond Felton
The 2014 offseason allowed Phil Jackson to go to work on the New York Knicks roster. One of his first moves sent Tyson Chandler and Raymond Felton, who were impact players on the 54-win team from the 2012-13 season, to the Dallas Mavericks.
While the Knicks arguably needed to change some pieces after a 37-win season, they barely managed to secure a return, which brought in the aging Jose Calderon, Samuel Dalembert, Wayne Ellington, Shane Larkin and two 2014 second-round picks.
Calderon stuck around as a starter, but he was not the player that filled the stat sheet with the Toronto Raptors. That’s while Dalembert only lasted half a season, before the organization waived him, and he never played another NBA game.
Ellington, who turned into a fine player, was sent away before the 2014-15 season started. The other youngster, Larkin, played one season but never displayed more than backup skills and left the team after one year.
As for the two picks, they became Cleanthony Early and Thanasis Antetokounmpo. Both fell out of the Association in a blink of the eye.
Chandler and Felton never starred for Dallas, but Jackson did not overwhelm with the return package, which later became the case with JR Smith and Iman Shumpert. The perception of “he could have received more” lingered.