When Derek Fisher was hired as the head coach of the New York Knicks, he knew he’d have his plate full. In his first few weeks on the job, Derek has embraced the challenge.
As the offseason begins in earnest with this week’s NBA Draft, the future of several key players for the Knicks remains up in the air. Additionally, the franchise is tied to the contracts of several other players through this season, putting major moves to revamp the New York roster a year away from fruition.
With that in mind, D-Fish is prepared to delve into the current roster and dig up as much production as possible.
“We’re not going to create magic by making someone Magic Johnson who isn’t Magic Johnson,” Derek explained. “It’s our job to find a way to get the most out of the players we have. There’ll be personnel decisions made going forward over the years that players will come, players will go.”
With high-dollar solutions off the table, Coach Fisher will instead be looking to establish a team-first approach similar to the newly crowned NBA champion San Antonio Spurs.
“How do you make the most of what you have? That’s the message that I’ll send to these players, every single day,” D-Fish said. “We have to bloom where we’re planted a lot of times in life. We can’t look for ways out, and excuses why you aren’t excelling and doing things at a higher level.”
Derek believes that another advantage toward that mentality will be the team’s offensive style. A major inquiry since Fish became coach of the Knicks has been in regard to the triangle offense which Team President Phil Jackson is a firm believer in. But Fish has made it clear he isn’t married to one style or another, instead he’ll pull the trigger on whichever scheme best fits his team, triangle or otherwise.
“Ultimately we have to do what’s best for the players and the team to be successful. I love the triangle, but we’ll do what we feel like is best for the group,” he said. “I’ve also played with other great coaches that don’t run the triangle. It’s not necessarily the only way to play basketball….I believe with the roster we have we can utilize it to be more efficient, to be more effective, to give ourselves a better chance to play better defense by getting higher-percentage shots. So I believe in the
[triangle] system.Fish believes he can use this approach because of the inherent talent on the New York roster. Despite the team’s disappointing finish last year, Derek sees a team capable of accomplishing big goals.
“There are a lot of very, very talented players, not just average players,” Derek said of the Knicks’ roster. “We obviously will have to work to keep some of those — one guy [Carmelo Anthony] we talked about in particular. But there’s a lot of talent, ability, versatility on this roster.
At the end of the day we have to find a way to create a format, a system, a way of playing that makes it easy for players to play the game, to be more effective, to utilize the full talent of our roster, not lean so heavily on one or two guys. We believe we can do it.”
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Having watched Derek Fisher ever since he as a player at University of Ark. at Little Rock, I know that he was a great player and will be an equally great coach. He works harder than just about anyone on any team he has ever been on and has a talent to up lift the other players just by being on the floor. We are so very proud that Fish has gotten a head coaching job to quickly, but the Jackson knows Derek very well. Good luck Fish