Ranking the 4 worst coaching hires in New York Knicks history

In the long history of the New York Knicks, fans have seen a plethora of mistakes made by the various people running the team’s front office. The decisions that have caught the most flak have been trades or free-agent signings.

While the Knicks have made several mistakes from a roster construction point of view, they have also made some pretty terrible head coaching hires. Some coaches were dealt a bad hand, making it difficult to judge how good or bad they were. These four guys stand out from the rest as being some of the worst the team has seen in their 76-year tenure.

Here is our ranking of the four worst coaching hires in Knicks history:

4. Derek Fisher

While part of Derek Fisher’s tenure was met with the Knicks entering their rebuilding phase, he was still given a relatively solid roster when he first joined the team. He had names like Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert, and a somewhat solid Amar’e Stoudemire to start the season.

Despite all of this, the Knicks would start the season off by winning just five of their first 30 games. Shortly after this, the downfall of the Melo-led Knicks would begin. On January 5th, Shumpert and Smith were traded to the Cavaliers for nearly nothing and Stoudemire would be bought out.

A good portion of the lack of success can be put on Phil Jackson, who was the executive at the time. Not only did he make some truly awful moves to try and improve the roster, but he also forced Fisher to run the triangle which was laughable. For Jackson to look at this team and think that the triangle was the best system to run is embarrassing for a coach of his stature.

Regardless, Fisher simply didn’t do anything to impress during his time with New York and would last just a season and a half with the team. During this period, the Knicks and Fisher would go 40-96 before he was replaced by Kurt Rambis 54 games into the 2015-16 season.