Knicks Hire Mike Miller As Their New Interim Head Coach

Maybe they saw I didn’t post a recap for the last two games and they understood it was time to let Fiz go. I’ll always believe it went down that way.

Even with the trade embargo lifted for the Knicks in a couple days, I think our best bet is still to wait till the trade deadline to see who is out for the rest of the season. I’m also unconvinced that Melo will last in Portland, presumably Portland doesn’t play Chicago twice a week for the rest of the year.

I’m very curious to see what kind of rotations Miller will employ starting against Portland (it would shock me to see him change anything for tomorrow’s game). I think he’ll reinstate Mitch as the starter, but I don’t think he has enough clout/balls to bench Randle or Morris.

Unfortunately Ellington has probably played his way out of tradeability. Portis is a nice player but I can’t see anyone giving up an asset for a solid veteran bigman unless it’s something like a heavily protected second.

Fizdale was doing a very bad job (Earl Watson bad), and we were losing time. He just needed to go. That’s not the solution, just as putting some resin in my car’s motor wasn’t the solution, but at least it gives you a little more mileage until you find a proper new car.

Anyway yes, let’s enjoy Mr. Sepinwall enlightened insight until we have some real basketball stuff to discuss. This terrible team can wait!

What’s your guess about how many Knick fans there are nation wide? Any other city even close? I imagine LAL would be close.

How bad is it for basketball that we’re a .400 team since 2000? When / if we do get good I’m going to relish destroying backwater markets.

We have our picks and cap flexibility but the decision makers are morons and the organization kills people. Larry Brown, D’Antoni, Donnie Walsh, Phil Jackson all had stellar reputations until Dolan cut their balls off. Who would want to work here? We love Ujiri but what will he look like two years hence if we hire him?

I’m 52 and feel I may not see a championship in my lifetime.

Miller has nothing to lose. He’s most likely not getting the job full time next year. So he absolutely should just do what HE thinks is right for the team rotation wise. If he puts randle in the second unit and he pouts but the team gets better, that’s only going to make Randle look bad, not him.

So Miller should just say F it and do what he wants.

I’m 52 and feel I may not see a championship in my lifetime.

I’m 61.
Glad I was around in 1973.
It may never happen again.

For some reason I thought Keith Bogans was a backup on the Dallas championship team. (He wasn’t.)

That’s about all of my reaction to the coaching change. I’m not sure there was anything more inevitable in the NBA than David Fizdale getting canned.

@alsep73 what was the worst catered set you were ever on?

There’s a pizza place near my parents in Queens that Ray Romano must have grown up nearby that has like 9 different photos of Ray eating there up on the walls. Good pizza.

I thought it was just kinda dumb and embarrassing when Elton John rewrote candle in the wind to make it about Princess Diana but it would be neat if JD rewrote I Should Have Known to make it about Steve Mills

This makes it all official, at 6:22pm

I do think its wise to get rid of Mills before the trade deadline, preferably before the inevitable Wiggins trade he wants to do.

Also, jumping back again. Stick with Fleabag. I was unsure of the first episode, but started enjoying it quite a but by end of season 1. Season 2 was what elevated it from good to “I dont want to stop recommending it” territory. The show itself only has 6 episodes each season, so its really not much of a time commitment either.

It’s probably worth noting that Miller did come to the Knicks from the Spurs G-League coaching staff. The Spurs’ G-League coaching staff has had good success, as well (Snyder and someone else I forgot).

I did extra work on Ted 2 for 3 weeks on the Warner Brothers lot (I am very featured in the comic con scene as both a comic book nerd and a blue alien character).

We ate like absolute kings on that set. Full breakfast with chefs who would make you everything you wanted. A juice bar, etc. Then after the breakfast was taken away, tons of fresh donuts brought in mid morning. Gourmet coffee, etc. Then full catered lunch and dinner and it was different every time. Then of course craft services that had every kind of chip, nut, candy, soda, seltzer, etc…you could imagine. It was ridiculous. The days were 14 to 18 hour days though.

I also did extra work on a korean soap opera once in NYC. They had standard catered food for the Americans but then brought in all this DOPE korean food for the korean actors and crew. After the first day all the Americans started saying “hey, we would rather have the korean food”, so then they just brought in the korean food for everyone. Getting BiBimBop and Bulgogi for free every day for lunch and dinner was a real treat.

At this point, I think Miller’s a no-brainer.

I just want them to start coaching the players the right way. They need to defend the paint and the perimeter. They need to hustle. They need to play the kids. They need to really hold players accountable.

The bigger issue is that Mills and Perry are still here. They have to reconstruct the team with trades and get some balance but those bozos will just drop the ball again.

Clarence Gaines

Mike Miller was recommended to PJ by Frank Hamblen b/c of his familiarity with the triangle. PJ passed on the rec to Allan Houston & he hired him. Mike has a nice coaching temperament & solid background. Understanding a system offense like triangle gives one a solid foundation.

More Gaines

‘@JCMacriNBA asked if I had a reaction to today’s news that I’d be willing to share?” Of course I do. I haven’t watched last 3 @nyknicks games, but when I saw the score I watched to see if they quit on @CoachFizdale – They didn’t – They just got their ass kicked. {Thread coming}

Happy trails Mrs Fiz you will be missed

We could keep the TV talk goink, though. I know a thing or three about The Sopranos, and I’ve literally been to The Good Place. AMA.

I love the good place. Probably never would have discovered it if not for you.

Ok, guys, it’s friday and I just got home, ordered some dinner and cracked open a bottle of wine with the lady.

Do I want to watch the Irishman? Is it actually good, or just there? I mean, a 3.5 hour movie? I dunno.

Neither of us have seen justified. So it’s the Irishman or jump into season 1.

Thoughts?

Do I want to watch the Irishman? Is it actually good, or just there? I mean, a 3.5 hour movie? I dunno.

if you’re looking for an early night in bed – perfect movie…obviously well acted, but, pretty indulgent piece from de niro and friends…enjoyable to watch…like a nice fall day staring out the window watching the leaves fall…

my recommendation – go deep in to some super delicious gladiator stuff: Spartacus, Blood and Sand season 1…you’ll thank me later…

Gods of the Arena (prequel which aired afterwards due to some health concerns for andy whitfield – super sad story) – wasn’t so bad either…season 2 was pretty dismal, but, the series ended fairly strong with season 3…

hmmm, maybe that’s why i’m still single and sleep alone…

jfc Stephen A just said he’s heard Dolan likes Jason Kidd

jfc Stephen A just said he’s heard Dolan likes Jason Kidd

To play or to coach?

Do I want to watch the Irishman? Is it actually good, or just there? I mean, a 3.5 hour movie? I dunno.

if you don’t have an intense interest in jimmy hoffa, i strongly recommend justified instead. justified might be my favorite bad tv show ever, just ahead of the shield. the irishman is kinda the opposite. an interesting story, thoughtfully portrayed, but still not much more edifying than reading a nonfiction version. the re-aging thing really fucked with my attention, and not in a good way.

I was overruled. It’s the Irishman.

damnit hubert

This shit is really not complicated-don’t hire coaches whose last team significantly improved after firing them!

i assume you are referring to Kidd. It also applies to Mark Jackson.

I don’t want either one of them.

Yeah, and Frank was drafted by Phil specifically because he was a Triangle fit/system type of player. And RJ too feels like a Triangley type player.

We could keep the TV talk goink, though.

Turns out new coach Mike Miller isn’t the ex-journeyman player. He’s the Jason Sudeikis character from the tv show The Last Man on Earth. Sweet!

We are all like recovering Knicks addicts. “I’m ….. years old and I don’t think I’ll see a championship in my lifetime.”

Recovering?

Justified might be my favorite bad tv show ever,

The Last Kingdom is definitely that show for me. That’s not good tv but I have yet to have a person come back to me after I recommended it who didn’t have an awesome time binging. Granted, all these people are in their early forties with kids but it’s a middlebrow crowdpleaser to the max.

Also, hard no on Paul

Hammond knows that at MSG, a 4-year deal means getting paid for 18 months of work.

Dred, correct. OKC has 13 1sts, 6 2nds over the next 7 drafts. Now were just haggling over price.
And I’m not advocating this, but at this point we should consider ANY way to build the team.

I think this is a purely academic question. OKC has no urgent need to dump CP3, why would they give up sweetener to do it?

Macbeth is delusional before he even kills Duncan, and hears voices moments after he does. However, he also seems morally aware and regretful even BEFORE he commits his first murder

I think you nailed it here. I always interpreted Macbeth as beginning his descent into madness the moment he seriously contemplated the thought of killing Duncan. His delusions are a manifestation of repressed guilt for entertaining this betrayal. In Throne of Blood, Akira Kurosawa’s movie adaptation of Macbeth, the analogue to the Weird Sisters pretty much lays it out in full detail after her prophecy:

Old Ghost Woman: You humans! Never will I comprehend you. You are afraid of your desires – you try to hide them.

I think Macbeth’s underlying problem is one of too much consciousness. Once he faces his hidden desire for the throne he can’t turn back and ignore it even if hates himself for acting upon it. That’s why the play is so worthwhile, it shows how even the noblest of us can be corrupted by our innermost desires, all you need is a little push.

Is WW crazy from the first episode? Does he later go crazy? Or is he never really that, just morally dark?

I don’t think Walt starts off as “crazy” per say, but I do think he’s a very repressed man at the show’s beginning. After confronting the inevitable finality of his imminent death a lot of his repressed desires comes to surface in the way they do for someone who feels they have nothing left to lose anymore. And throughout the series you see a lot of his behavior become irrational and erratic, particularly in regards to his need to seek danger for the thrill.

Also, there is the Lady Macbeth factor, as she drives Mac early on whereas WW’s wife does not assert…

I actually think Jesse kind of plays the Lady Macbeth role, especially early on. Both pairs develop a very problematic codependency…

if okc wanted to trade cp3 and give up picks to do it he would’ve been on the heat by now….

and as long as cp3 has two working legs he’ll be good for a lot longer that you’ll expect…. guys that are all-time greats like cp3 generally don’t just crater because they’re already coming from a very high production level….

if his hamstrings cooperate he’ll be good until he’s 40…

@70, noble, it is merely the extreme example of one course of business the nix finally need to explore. Let’s face it, no free agents are coming for a long time and drafting is the way to go. Stockpile draft capital and use it well. I dont think okc will trade him right now, but there will be other opportinities which we should explore.

if his hamstrings cooperate he’ll be good until he’s 40…

The decline is already pronounced and irreversible. Dude has seen literally every stat go down. Scoring volume, efficiency, steal rate, assist rate, ORB%, and so on. He’s still a steal artist (per possession) and an efficient scorer. But he used to be a top-5 player every year, without fail. You can’t see all of his stats drop off and say he’s anywhere near where he used to be, which, even in his absolute prime, was not a world-beating force (a la Magic, Jordan, LeBron) that could carry a team on its own) outside of maybe 2007-09, which had some of my favorite highlights of any guard ever.

He might age like Stockton but he will never again be a significant element of a championship contender. He might supplant Barkley and Stockton and Malone as the best player to never win a ring. If he weren’t such an asshole, I might feel bad.

Rodney Hood suffers torn Achilles

Portland back in the market for Morris…..

Yeah, Presti is not dumping Paul. He’s said he’s not dumping Paul and all of his actions have backed up that he’s not dumping Paul. So no trade where the Knicks get picks to take Paul is worth discussing.

Since the season is over and the trade floodgates open in 8 days, let’s talk trades.
I said that I want continuity on the team. I also want the Knicks to collect as many picks as they can.

Here’s how I see it. Trade up to three from row-1 and two from row-2:
row-1: Dotson, DSJr, Ellington, Payton, Bullock
row-2: Randle, Morris, Taj, Portis
I have preferences of who I would keep but it doesn’t matter. Trade the most marketable players.

I want the following players to be in the rotation:
Ntilikia, RJ, Knox, Mitch, Trier, Wooten
Add who ever remains from row-1 and row-2 that weren’t traded or the assets acquired through trade.

I’ve seen alot of talk about the next HC. It’s fun to dream about JVG coming back or some under the radar young talented coach…but I really wanna see what Miller does with it. He kinda has a similar approach to the game as JVG. And we need a no nonsense coach right now. I personally believe he will do well. And I also would not have a problem if we gave MWP his start as an assistant on this staff.

I have a question though. Which remaining coach on the staff is good with offense? I don’t really see one

Glad that Fiz’s gone.
His game and approach of the players was problematic.
He tried to learn how to be a heart surgeon over an almost dead body but failed miserably.
I blame his ego for that for not riding what was clearly working and for losing players trust.

Now at least i have a reason to watch the games.

cassel?

How about Reggie Miller

Cassel destroyed us too in the finals

Frank O, where did you read other coaches comments on the Knicks?

Thanks

@93 I hope that’s true.. He’s right after Bibi and Trump on the list of people in power I’d like to see ousted.

The sad truth is that Fizdale probably didn’t make that much difference. We lost some early games because of being the worst free throw shooting team in the league. We were in a bunch of games against decent to good teams. Maybe a better coach gets 2-3 more wins out of this group, but if we were 7-14 would we feel all that much better?

Sure, there was no semblance of a coherent offensive or defensive system (not really true, but let’s concede the point for now.) What system is going to work with this collection of players? We’re bad at offense because the majority of our players can’t shoot. We’re bad at defense because the majority of our players are bad defenders (including Mitch, who is quite dumb in terms of defensive decision-making.)

The most glaring issue is our young guys. Fiz was belatedly starting to hold some of them to account. Except RJ, who sabotaged many a game but never got blamed for it or had his minutes reduced. Not a single one of them has developed much, if at all, since last year. Frank is slightly better but still has a sub-.500 TS% and a negative OBPM, DBPM, BPM and a way below average WS48 as a 3rd year player.

I think the mercenary signings are a bigger problem than many realized, especially the FO that hatched this plan. They also picked the wrong guys.

pt agreed, i liked that line more for the humor than the accuracy. That said, there was kind of a dumbfounded, chicken without a head effort level, and some of it seemed like a thickheadedness when it came to defensive spacing and offensive decision-making. Jumping out late on 3-pointers because you hedged too far inside, stuff like that.

I would imagine/hope that Pills will be very limited in what trades they can do and denied any hail Mary trades for superstars (eg. Andrew Wiggins)

@92
Ha! Truuuue true lol

@100

I respect you defending fiz. I think he came here with a mentality that was dedicated to stay the course. To that extent he deserves some credit. But a lot of the points you bring up don’t hold true.

Bad Free throw shooting falls squarely on the coaching. Moron Mitch fouling guards 39 feet from the basket also falls on coaching.

Those should be easy fixes .so would getting pnr sets all day every day for Mitch as well as developing some offense for him outside of two feet from the basket, another thing that falls on coaching.

Making randle the point forward is bad .

What doesn’t fall on him is kp wanting out and constructing a roster of pfs in a league defined by guard and wing play to stretch the floor.

He can’t do that during 3-on-3s I bet

@110 I don’t see how you can pin poor FT shooting on coaching. These are NBA players, not a middle school travel team. As to Mitch, sure, you can eliminate his defending guys far from the basket, but the vast majority of his fouls are in the paint area. He gets some running out to block 3’s, but do you want him to stop doing that? Mitch fouls out mainly because he uses his hands down low too much. I suppose coaching has something to do with it, but to me it’s more a Mitch problem than a coach problem.

These are kids though. treat them accordingly if they can’t make free throws. ‘You can’t leave the gym till u hit 75’ every practice…All I’m saying is the need to prioritize the smallest things. That’s good coaching.

I remember that Pitino would make his team practice free throws at the end of practice, when everyone was sweaty and tired, because he felt that was more like what you would have to do in a game. That said, it’s hard to get practice time during the season and the Knicks had many many things to work on.

And speaking of practice time, by firing Fizdale yesterday, the new coach gets three days at home with only one game in that period, so he can hold at least one practice with the team. If the Knicks waited, they would be on a four game West coast trip, and they might have felt they had to wait another week or two to fire Fizdale.

It’s Not about Wins and Losses (or Fts !)
Fiz’s Knicks put effort on D but were clueless on Offense.
The combinations he was making were at least hillarious and at a lower degree ‘dangerous’ for players’ psychology/development.
He showed clearly that he wasn’t playing the best ones but the ones he liked most for whatever reason.
At times he showed signs of clarity but couldn’t sustain it….

I don’t remember the exact moment but i remember me being the first (?) to comment here that Fiz must Go during a game thread after feeling that he fucked it up coaching VERY BADLY.
Crack ! (Glass breaking)

I don’t think Fiz’s combinations were hilarious. Some things he was doing were forced on him by the roster. For example, Randle and Robinson don’t fit together, so he had Mitch coming off the bench. It took him a little while to figure that out, but he did. His defense was ok, and for the most part the players were putting out effort. The offense was abysmal, I agree. Some of that was him, for sure, but it didn’t help that all his best scorers were power forwards.

@122
putting Knox to play starting SG
and rookie RJ to play PG
Or putting 4PFs to play together can be taken Only as a bad joke or as a cryptomessage to the FO or to the Aliens.

As far as i remember he put RJ to play PG more than one time and while all 3 or at least 2 pgs were available.

Knew your Knicks, you and I remember differently. I don’t know how to check who is correct. It’s possible Barrett was backup point guard more than once, but I am sure he only started at that posiion once.

Really interesting list. Phil Jackson? Rick Pitino? Mike Brown? Pat Riley? It’s like they’re exploiting the kind of people who spend $1000 on the billion-to-one odds Powerball tickets.

Precisely my thinking, as well. How is Miller not even on the list?

I don’t think there was an effort problem. Fiz wasn’t good by any standard, but the team didn’t quit on him or anything like that. And honestly, effort counts for a lot less than people seem to think. One thing Strat is right about is that the team played dumb on an individual and a tactical level. Randle shouldn’t be freelancing from the 3-pt line, or iso-ing anybody unless there’s a really favorable matchup. Mitch aggressively defends shots he shouldn’t be getting up for because he or someone else has already been beat. A+ for effort, F for stupid because it leads to fouls and puts him out of position for rebounds. The effort he’s putting in is a problem because he doesn’t recognize the difference between when he should and shouldn’t be contesting so aggressively so he goes all out all the time. They need to play smarter, not harder. Half the damn sport is positioning and timing and Fizdale was the absolute pits at that.

And yeah, there is likely no effort problem in the first twenty games. Maybe after the ASB on a lottery-bound team, sure, but almost all of these guys are fighting for their first vet deal or are on a placeholder 1-year and stand to benefit greatly from a career year on a team whose minutes allocation is wide open. Anyone who slacks in those situations isn’t worthy of a roster slot.

that’s quite the metaphor

Woj was on ESPN last night mentioning both of Bob Myers and Masai Ujiri as potential POBO options if Dolan makes the job desirable (basically if he gives them the Phil Jackson deal minus Mills and the medical staff). Ujiri has always been the hot name, but Bob Myers? Why would he leave San Francisco for the Knicks? I’d be stoked if we got Bob Myers because his presence alone means Mark Jackson can’t get the job, but I just can’t see that as possible.

Wait, we coulda had Metta World Peace as coach and whiffed? How did we mess that up?!

Masai/Becky 2020

Agreed! It’s a draw

@147

I know you’re talking about Bob Myers, but now I envision Grunfeld taking over and sending Frank, Knox and filler to Miami for Meyers Leonard.

sad I’m going to miss the start of the miller era

so it’s pretty weird to stick miller out in front of the press without any executive comment on the firing, right? i get that they did the precog firing a couple weeks ago, but you’d think they’d at least say a little something. if there’s no follow up at all after the game, it sure seems to support the idea that the front office is also pre-fired.

Dolan’s not smart enough to both obsess about Ujiri and stop Pills from making a dumb trade of valuable assets while he waits, is he?