Phil Jackson tells everybody to be patient regarding Knicks rebuild
Last season, the New York Knicks suffered their worst record in the history of their nearly 70-year history in the NBA. Phil Jackson and Derek Fisher both joined the team last summer, but injuries to Carmelo Anthony, Iman Shumpert and others caused them to fail miserably with a 17-65 season. Luckily for fans of the Knickerbockers, they have the fourth overall pick in Thursday night’s NBA Draft, which the Zen Master is looking to draft the best available player. On a brief promo run, the Knicks president spoke with both ESPN and Bleacher Report Tuesday afternoon regarding not trading away the pick and his two cents on LeBron James.
After you watch the video above, take a looks at comments regarding LeBron’s tendency to travel and the NBA moving back away from its team-based tendencies that plagued the league in the late 90s and early 2000s.
“I watch LeBron James, for example,” he said. “He might [travel] every other time he catches the basketball if he’s off the ball. He catches the ball, moves both his feet. You see it happen all the time. There’s no structure, there’s no discipline, there’s no ‘How do we play this game’ type of attitude. And it goes all the way through the game. To the point where now guys don’t screen—they push guys off with their hands.”
“The game actually has some beauty to it, and we’ve kind of taken some of that out of it to make it individualized,” Jackson said. “It’s a lot of who we are as a country, individualized stuff.” “When I watch some of these playoff games, and I look at what’s being run out there, as what people call an offense, it’s really quite remarkable to see how far our game has fallen from a team game,” Jackson said. “Four guys stand around watching one guy dribble a basketball.”
Phil Jackson Takes Full Responsibility For Knicks Season