Former New York Knicks head coach David Fizdale recently revealed that he agreed to tank games in hopes of landing Zion Williamson or Ja Morant in the 2019 NBA Draft. The Knicks went 17-65 in the 2018-19 regular season, a major part of Fizdale's 21-83 record overall in New York. The coach, who last worked for the Phoenix Suns, also revealed that the Knicks were certain that Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving would sign with them in the offseason. None of that came to fruition, and the coach was fired soon after. Now, he seems to be looking to set the record straight on his tenure.
Fizdale says tanking plans for Williamson, Morant went awry
The coach didn't specify how much the team's tanking strategy affected their roster construction or rotational decisions on a nightly basis, but did explain that he agreed with the front office at the time to a long-term plan that involved sacrificing wins at first to stockpile assets – and then talent.
“The plan that we came up with, I was all in on that, and I was like this is the deal and this is the way to go about it. It just didn’t come to fruition. ... Losing all them d--- games, donating my record to get Zion Williamson or Ja [Morant],” Fizdale said on FanDuel TV's Run It Back.
Durant and Irving both ended up coming to New York City, but neither ended up donning Knicks orange and blue. The team's willingness to lose dozens of games in hopes of landing a blue-chip prospect in the draft was also tied to their belief that they'd score big in free agency as well.
“That summer our people seem to have thought KD and Kyrie for sure was coming to us, that s--t didn’t work out," the coach added.
Fizdale unsurprisingly says he would've pushed Knicks to upgrade roster
It's part of the job of a head coach in sports to pester their front office with requests for upgraded personnel – and to berate them for trading talented players. It's part of the job of front offices to get their coaches on board with whatever the plan, or the pivot, is.
Fizdale was clearly in lockstep with team management when they decided as an organization that losing was the best path to winning. But that doesn't mean he would need to sign up to do it again, if given the opportunity.
“If I was doing it over again, I would have fought more to build a team early on and not cash in my record. That’s the hard part for coaches when you agree to the...tanking. When you tank, you’re supposed to build something bigger," the coach said in the interview.
The Knicks' roster was bereft of competitive talent at the time – not without NBA players, but without enough of the right ones that fit together. Fizdale might not have had much of a different record, even if the team did push in some chips. And if they were good enough to have avoided the lottery entirely, it probably would have been at the cost of their future flexibility.
Knicks fans rooting for a championship this season should definitely be thankful that things didn't play out that way. The book isn't closed on Fizdale's career as a coach, and fans in sports should have learned by now to never say never. But, for New York fans specifically, they should be glad things went the way they did.