In hindsight, Phil Jackson’s decision to fire New York Knicks head coach Derek Fisher seemed to be a long time coming.
It didn’t feel that way at first. Fisher is a Jackson disciple. He was Phil’s second choice to man the Knicks after Steve Kerr committed to the Golden State Warriors. The Knicks were a crap fest last year and, despite a much-improved record, weren’t expected to win anything especial in 2015-16. Fisher should have enjoyed the luxury of time and patience and, by extension, job security.
But things between Fisher and Jackson don’t seem to have been that great. More specifically, Fisher apparently wasn’t that good at communicating with Jackson, via email or otherwise, per the New York Times’ Scott Caccoala:
At the same time, Jackson pledged before the start of training camp to be more involved in the day-to-day affairs of the team, especially when it came to advising Fisher. On Monday, though, Jackson indicated that there had been lapses in his communication with Fisher.
“A lot of times, it was one way — and I understand,” Jackson said, adding: “A lot of times, the conversation might have been through written emails and things like that, where he was either in a practice or in a situation. A lot of times, he would send me back a short note: ‘Got it,’ or ‘We’ll get on it.’ ”
How bad were those emails?
I gave y’all a glance:
Takeaways from Phil Jackson’s inbox: Zen Bear needs to open responses, and Derek Fisher has communication issues. pic.twitter.com/NdbG2V5LxK
— Dan Favale (@danfavale) February 9, 2016
Anyhow, it seems like Jackson wants to be more hands-on than most presidents, and Fisher didn’t appear to be meeting his standard of coaching. And when that’s coupled with the Knicks losing games, it’s not hard to see, from a personality standpoint, where it all went wrong.
