New York Knicks Phil Jackson Issues Challenge To Team

New York Knicks President Phil Jackson took to Twitter to issue a challenge to his overhauled roster.

The New York Knicks have seen their roster get overhauled by Phil Jackson this offseason. Despite improving during the 2015-16 season over the 2014-15 campaign, the Knicks still came away feeling a little disappointed in how things went.

While there were some highlights and bright spots, there were not nearly enough for Jackson and the front office to be comfortable bringing back the same core group. As a result, they got busy in the offseason adding a ton of talent to the roster.

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The first move that came about was the trade for point guard Derrick Rose from the Chicago Bulls. Point guard was the position that Jackson and general manager Steve Mills pinpointed as the spot that needed to be upgraded, and they succeeded in that by adding Rose.

The Knicks would not be able to land a pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, but they were able to add talent from the undrafted free agent pool. They signed Ron Baker, out of Wichita State, to a partially guaranteed deal, and he will probably be invited to training camp. Marshall Plumlee was also signed as an undrafted free agent out of Duke, and landed a guaranteed multi-year deal.

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After that, free agency began and the Knicks were very aggressive in the early going. They filled out the starting lineup with Joakim Noah and Courtney Lee, before adding Brandon Jennings, Willy Hernangomez and Mindaugas Kuzminskas to the second unit along with Justin Holiday, whom was acquired with Rose. Kyle O’Quinn was a hold over from last season, while they re-signed Lance Thomas and Sasha Vujacic and added Maurice Ndour.

With all of those moves, the Knicks roster now has 14 players with guaranteed deals for the 2015-16 season. That means the Knicks roster is virtually set for the regular season, as they can add at most one more player, as 15 is the maximum a team can have on their roster for the regular season.

That could play a part in Jackson choosing now to send a message to his team. With the players essentially in place, he knows who will be a part of the team moving forward, and went to Twitter to issue a message and challenge to his players.

While he does not directly say it, Jackson is probably implying that the effort was not always there last season when the Knicks finished with a record of 32-50. The hiring of Derek Fisher did not pan out as Jackson had hoped, as Fisher seemed to lose the locker room and not get it back once losses began to mount.

The Knicks overhaul of the roster makes it difficult to say who he may be pinpointing with his tweet, but it is clear he was unhappy with the performance at times last season. As a result, he went all-in this offseason to make sure that it does not happen again.

The Knicks are set to begin a new era of sorts, as Jeff Hornacek will be taking over on the sidelines and the Knicks roster is as strong on paper as it has been in recent history. Jackson wants this era to get off to a better start than the Fisher one did, as the Knicks had the worst season in franchise history Fisher’s rookie season on the job, as they won only 17 games.

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While that season was tough to stomach, it also resulted in the Knicks landing franchise cornerstone Kristaps Porzingis, something the organization and fans are certainly happy about. He is a key to the future for the Knicks, and Jackson is hoping that his construction of the roster and challenge to the roster will help get the ball rolling.