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New York Knicks Poll: Did Phil Jackson Do A Great Job In 2014-15?

By Kenneth Teape

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Phil Jackson Said He Did A Great Job In His First Season Leading The New York Knicks In 2014-15; Do You Agree?

The 2014-15 season for the New York Knicks was a disaster. They managed to win only 17 games, throwing up the white flag on the season in early January when they shipped Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith to the Cleveland Cavaliers essentially for cap space. Trading for cap space and not real assets was the main theme of all of the moves the Knicks and Phil Jackson seemed to make last season, as the trade with the Dallas Mavericks that saw Tyson Chandler moved out of town was essentially to get rid of Raymond Felton’s contract.

With how the season turned out, it is hard for any Knicks fan, even the most optimistic of them, to say this season was a success in any way. Sure they found a couple of players that look like they can be future rotation players such as Langston Galloway, Alexey Shved and Jason Smith, but calling this season a success in any way could force a person to undergo psychiatric testing for insanity.

But, what if that person was Jackson himself? Earlier this afternoon, when talking to reporters, Jackson offered a self assessment from the job he did in his first full year as President of the Knicks. His self evaluation was that he did a great job during the his first season at the helm of the franchise.

There are some people that would disagree with that assessment, as the Knicks suffered through the worst season in franchise history. While he is more than likely speaking on his ability to shed payroll and give the Knicks salary cap flexibility, the Knicks were still a disaster on the court as they never seemed to fully grasp the Triangle Offense while suffering through a mirade of injuries.

Knick fans are also scorn by previous regimes selling hope in the future as recent as 2010 when they cleaned their books to make a run at LeBron James, and came away with Amar’e Stoudemire and his brittle knees. While that is nice that he cleared all that cap space to give the Knicks a chance to be players in free agency, that is truly the easy part.

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Clearing all of the cap space for Jackson and the Knicks was easy, as they just dumped and attached whatever assets they had to rid themselves of contracts they did not want. The hard part comes now, when Jackson needs to turn all that cap space and hope into useable players and assets on the court.

Another thing Jackson touched on was some of the Knicks plans in the NBA Draft on Thursday. Jackson said that the Knicks will more than likely not trade the pick, meaning fans will have a top prospect to cheer on next season at a minimum to cheer on next to Carmelo Anthony.

While that is a step in the right direction, it could still be argued that Jackson’s self assessment of himself doing a great job last season was wrong. What do you think? Let us know by voting in our poll or leaving comments below!

Next: Was Carmelo The Top New York Athlete In 2014?

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