TORONTO — Just about every aspect of Phil Jackson, basketball executive, is still a vast unknown. The Knicks are essentially paying him $60 million on spec, and on the reputation he earned as the most successful coach in NBA history, with the extra bonus that he spent his most productive years as a player at Madison Square Garden.
All of that is fabulous.
All of that was splendidly exploited during his brief honeymoon, beginning with his introductory press conference, continuing through his rare public pronouncements since, mostly encircling the times he would quietly come to the Garden and watch the remains of the 2014 Knicks chase a playoff pipe dream.
And none of it tells us as much about Jackson as this first order of business, conducted Monday, when he fired Mike Woodson and his army of assistant coaches, made a clean break with all of them including (at least for the time being) Herb Williams, who’s survived so many palace coups at the Garden, it was assumed he was on permanent retainer.
Firing Woodson isn’t exactly an original thought, and it’s something most Knicks fans have been waiting for since December. By the end, Woodson’s only real supporters were those who blindly looked at his win-loss record and never actually bothered to watch a game in person this year, to see just how terribly coached this team was.
What’s more useful is seeing the way Jackson went about this: coolly — almost coldly — with little emotion and zero sentiment. He sent Woodson and his men on their way with a brushstroke of kindness — “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mike Woodson and his entire staff,” Jackson said in a statement released by the team — but didn’t feel the need to go overboard, either.
“The time has come,” Jackson said, “for change throughout the franchise as we start the journey to assess and build this team for next season and beyond.”
And that time, in this instance, was right now.
Immediately.
And if that’s a signal of how Jackson is going to be for as long as he sits at the helm of this franchise and this journey, then it is a positive first step. It is decisive, it is BS-free, it is business first, it is resounding.
So much of succeeding in the role Jackson has assumed is about how you go about your business, every bit as much as the results of that business. There can be no half-measures. There can be no halfway. When Frank Cashen ran the Mets, he said, “One of the tricks to this job is balancing what seems to be two irreconcilable realities: patience and impatience.”
That’s exactly right. Knicks fans won’t sit still for the kind of elaborate, time-consuming rebuilding program that, for instance, Sandy Alderson has brought the Mets, where progress is measured in millimeters rather than miles — and Jackson is, frankly, too old for that kind of deliberate process.
But the Knicks have been burned for decades by the impetuousness that a right-now culture fosters, and that goes not only for Andrea Bargnani of the latter-day Knicks but every other impulse buy going back to Spencer Haywood, the first dim-bulb bright idea that ransomed the franchise’s health for its ego.
Next up will be finding Woodson’s replacement, and all indications are Jackson has already given serious thought to that, has already identified Steve Kerr as his man, and it will be interesting to see how quickly he tries to close that.
Again, it will take some decisiveness on Jackson’s part, starting with the need to inform Kerr he would have to give up his sweet broadcasting gig if he says yes. Remember: no half-measures.
The tough part is still beyond that: identifying the right players and then having the skill to draft, sign or acquire them. Still so much of Jackson’s game is to be defined and determined. But if he’s going to do the rest of the job as decisively as his first act? He really might have a fighting chance after all.