“I am willing and grateful to hand over all basketball affairs and responsibilities to Phil.”
In March, 2014, when James Dolan spoke to the flash, social media and New York reporters, he finally breathed a sigh of relief temporarily. At first, they just wanted to change their head coach in the middle of the 13-14 season, and let this weak chicken, who won 9 and lost 21, regain the momentum of winning the second round last season. Who knows, the management actually caught Phil Jackson.
Although the ending of the Lakers is not glorious, age and injuries will not fade the reputation of Zen master and triangle attack. In fact, the Knicks had no chance. At the end of 2012, the Lakers wanted to continue with Phil Jackson, but in the meeting with the Lakers General Manager Kupchak, the Zen master did not give an answer immediately-after a year and a half, the decision to return to Los Angeles was not easy to do. He had to think for two days, and these two days were still weekends.
However, Kupchak and Jerry Buss, who were eager for change, didn’t have the time. 30 hours passed, and they didn’t wait for the Zen Master’s phone number ①. They directly announced on Sunday night and officially signed D’Antoni.
“We didn’t agree to wait for his reply on Monday. I had to interview other candidates. Obviously, I still have work to do.” Kupchak ignored the down-Court rhythm of the Zen master, and even denied his on-court rhythm, “I know the triangle attack, obviously, I don’t believe it.”
① after announcing the candidate of the new manager, Kupchak immediately called the Zen Master late at night. The Zen master responded the next morning: “The midnight call is a bit strange, it’s like being stabbed in the back (you can use the word slimy when someone fails to live up to your trust or makes you dislike your behavior).”
However, Zen master is not so easy to satisfy.
It may be that you are tired of the high-intensity life that flies around and stands on the sidelines in every game, or you may want to go up to the next level after you become famous, and you don’t want to exchange roles with d’Antony, the Zen master asked Knicks to be higher than the head coach-I want to be a team speaker.
So…… It’s not bad either. Dolan thought that they just hired Steve Mills to become the general manager and vice chairman of the team in September 13. He has operated the Knicks home court for 9 years and is well versed in NBA management. Perhaps, this pair of executives may really create some miracles, involving the mire that even ISEA-Thomas, Larry-Brown and d’Antony cannot cross?
Months of communication and negotiation finally came to an end. Phil Jackson got the “undisturbed autonomy” he wanted, which meant that from team management to player selection to attack and defense system, he can act according to his own rhythm and ideas. At the officially appointed press conference, Zen Master promised: “I will create a team that loves each other and fights for each other.”
Therefore, at the key point of the team’s impact on the playoffs, Zen master signed Shannon Brown in his first week in office, and a month later, he signed Lamar Odom.
Odom signed a contract with Knicks, but he didn’t play one. It can be said that he signed it, but he didn’t sign it at all.
Although he scored a new season high of 14 points in the Knicks, Brown (and Odom, who only got one salary), who averaged 2 points in a game, failed to help Knicks win another game, squeeze out the eighth seat in the eastern eagle. It is hard to imagine that Jason Kidd, who has lost 6+3 games, will cause such a cliff decline. Fortunately, New York fans still have patience and hope: the team’s core lineup is still there, how to build a playoff-level lineup around Anthony is the first question Zen master has to face.
However, the first thing Zen master should do is to build his own horse. In April, Knicks fired coach Mike Woodson and began to discuss publicly the possibility of Derek Fisher becoming Knicks coach. Considering that old fish was still wearing Thunder jersey at that time, NBA quickly issued a ticket for “illegal recruitment” to Zen master. He didn’t care about this loss. As expected by himself and the outside world, Fisher announced his retirement after the end of the season. In June, the speed of light became the new boss of Knicks ②.
② The Zen master wanted to recruit his old Steve Cole, but Cole refused the invitation and turned to choose the Warriors: “from various angles, this is the right choice.”
A new era is about to begin!
That’s right!
Starting from the change of handsome, Knicks quickly entered the era of Zen master. On the day before Raymond Felton’s birthday, Knicks sold him and Tyson Chandler to the Mavericks and replaced them with Jose Calderon, Durham PROTONIC, Ellington, Sean Larkin and two picks, later, Quincy-Essy was exchanged with Ellington as the main body. In the daily round of the draft, the “letter brother” sainese-adtokunbo was selected, then sign Jason Smith… all this micro-operation is around the second largest goal that summer: to renew Anthony.
At the same time as the Knicks micro-operation, Anthony was listening to the lobbying of the Bulls, rockets, Mavericks and the Lakers. They knew very well what Anthony wanted, and they all showed him the bright future of the multi-giant lineup. But the illusory future also requires solid salary insurance, and the Bull row comes up with an attractive combination of “rose + Noah + Anthony, but it couldn’t keep up with the 0.124 billion-peak salary offered by Knicks in five years-with trading veto.
After a circle, Anthony was finally persuaded by Zen Master’s team building planning, tactical concept, superb speech and mother team contract. Zen master said: “We really reached a consensus that we are passionate about our future goals.”
The structure is clear and the staff are neat. Now Zen master can achieve his biggest goal: to practice the basketball concept of “Triangle attack” again in New York and use this concept to win.
Since the Zen Master announced to join the Knicks, the search volume of the word “triangle attack” began to surge, and the articles on “triangle attack” on the content retrieval website “lawyer Union News” increased by compared with 2013. Even the conductor of the New York subway station is discussing the triangle attack: “It may be that three to four players are constantly running from the weak side to the strong side. When the opponent relaxes his guard, he can find an opportunity.”
Since Sam-Barry first created, Tex-winter innovated and perfected, and then carried forward by Phil Jackson, triangle attack has become the most magical and controversial tactical concept in the basketball world. It is not as simple and crude as the high Horn pistol diamond with distinctive features, but is famous for its complex and changeable ambiguity. In Winter’s book triangle attack published in 1968, he used 228 pages to detail the complexity of triangle attack.
In 1987, the Zen master who served as a bull teaching assistant learned the concept of triangle attack from his colleague winter’s mouth, and immediately saw the clouds: “I realize that this is exactly the missing link I have been looking, the key point is not to confront the defensive side, but to play them in the palm of the hand and deceive them to expand their defense lines excessively. This means that thinking and action should be coordinated.”
The position of the strong side players constitutes a triangle, keeping a certain distance between each other, and mobilizing defense through passing and running positions. Everyone is looking for loopholes in the defense line, and everyone can pass and end the attack. The core of triangle attack lies in Reading defense and improvisation, followed by hundreds of changes. If there is no disadvantage among the players and how to vote in a state called “the zoom”, the Triangle attack can be called “the zoom” of the whole team “.
But obviously, not every team has such a foundation and understanding. Ron-Metta World Peace said that he had been with the Lakers for two years to gradually understand all this, and the Zen Master’s reaction was: “Although it is a waste of time, it takes two years to learn triangle attack.”
In 2016, Ci Shiping used this chart to show what triangle attack he learned was.
Triangle attack is like a high-level martial arts, which requires enough time, foundation, talent, patience and opportunity. Once there is no disadvantage in learning, the two three successive championships prove it. However, in the new era when the consciousness of stars is becoming more and more awakening, the pace of competition and life is getting faster and faster, and the patience of fans and management is getting less and less, people want to learn short and fast blocking and breaking.
Sand table deduction does not support the transformation of Zen master. Anthony’s favorite three threats will drag down offensive tempo, and Xiao Si, who is also good at ending, will also be be observant and alert. JR Smith is no longer just a simple happy shooter, looking at the team, the 33-year-old Calderon may be the most suitable for triangle attack…… The Knicks who tried to be elegant seemed to be stuffed into the mouth by barrel. All the opponents were saying, “Phil, this is much better than triangle attack.”
However, Zen master would not give up the triangle attack. Therefore, under the curious, expectant and malicious gaze of the whole world, JR Smith, who was not much higher than Metta World Peace, lost his rhythm and said that he was “in a struggle”; when the Knicks started 1 win and 10 losses, Anthony said bluntly that “the way we lost the game has not changed”. Fisher had to have a long talk with the players and admitted that “our players have not reached that level”……
The mentality of the whole team began to change. Zen master had to use psychological and public opinion tactics. He told reporters: “Knicks are forming a loser mentality.” And hope Anthony “makes his competition content more substantial.”
But the decline has been irreversible. The Knicks are like a triangular black hole, devouring the passion of players, the hope of New York fans, and the patience of everyone. Stoudemire described this kind of losing day as “Groundhog Day” (the famous American science fiction movie, the protagonist is trapped in the same day to cycle back and forth). After seven consecutive defeats, nine consecutive defeats and 16 consecutive defeats, the Knicks ushered in another seven consecutive defeats. The winter of 2015 went later than before. The Zen master could only admit: “So far, my experiment has failed.”
So, what’s next?
The team is similar to the people. Some people died at the age of 20, and they just repeated mechanically in the next few decades. Some teams also failed in the first year of transformation, in the next few years, this will only continue to be proved, and the Knicks in the 14-15 season will be like this. They exchanged the unicorn Porzingis with the second-to-last record of the league, and expected him to complete the mission Quincy-Essy, Cole-Aldrich and Xiao Si failed to complete-becoming the inner spool of the triangle attack.
But the reality is always cruel. More than half of the season, fisher fei tried his best to maintain the 50% winning rate and the newly sprouted confidence of new yorkers were suddenly defeated by a wave of 9 battles and 8 losses. The Zen master changed his job urgently with overwhelming public opinion. Kurt Lambis (another old acquaintance of Zen Master) took over the hot potato in the hands of the old fish and still failed to turn the tide. In the summer of 16, the newly appointed hornasek tried his best to bypass the questions about triangle attack and tried to implement his own tactics: “I won’t call it Triangle attack. Triangle tactics have many characteristics, they are all common in basketball tactics.”
But honasek forgot that in New York, a coach who couldn’t get the support of the management was not as good as farting. Soon after, the Zen master came to the training ground to guide the players to play Triangle tactics. Hornasek complained: “We are always discussing different things, and what we spend time teaching defenders is also different.”
The long-saved complaints and contradictions gradually became uncontrollable. There was no miracle in the “rose + Noah + Anthony” combination which was two years late. Rose publicly said that triangle attack was “random basketball”, and asked the reporter, “Do I have a choice?”
Rose of 21 million is at least the third score point with an average score of 18 points, while Noah with an annual salary of 17 million has only 5+9 points.
The operation of Knicks (or Phil Jackson) which made people frown was not Noaa. They exchanged a bunch of loose money with JR and incense PROTONIC in 15 years and several rounds of signing with Prigioni; when they sold little Hadaway in exchange for Jerian-Grant, who had an average of 6+2, they certainly didn’t expect that it would take 4 years and 71 million years to invite Hadaway back in the future; They bought avrolo, little Lopes, oquin and Derek Williams cleared up three of them a year later; Wu jiashic once again failed the Zen Master’s obsession with his old partner, Serafin, Jennings, Courtney Lee, Ron Baker, fredette……
Familiar Unfamiliar names come and go, and the background of the story is consistent.
All kinds of contradictions in the Knicks finally converged on Zen master and Anthony, and the deep pressure of New York’s crust burst out in the 16-17 season. The Zen master criticized Anthony for holding the ball for too long. The latter imitated the tone of the former, “we don’t need this kind of negative emotion now.” In 2017, a friend of the Zen master issued a document saying Anthony “should leave the Knicks”, while the Zen master praised another article criticizing Anthony. In April of that year, the Zen master had a public showdown: “Anthony would be better elsewhere.” Anthony was not to be outdone. He wrote on Twitter: “conceit is the only condition to destroy any relationship.”
Anthony finally used a showdown method: “Phil loves to say anything, I don’t want to say anything”
In June 2017, the Zen master once again said surprisingly: “Although we like polzingis very much, we must do something beneficial to the club.” The whole NBA was in an uproar when the Knicks wanted to sell Boshen? Even the media people who watched the excitement were shocked by the climax of the dramatic conflict. Zen master Niu, this almost forced Dolan to cut himself. What about Knicks?
What should I do? What can I do if I leave?
At the end of June, Phil Jackson resigned as he wished.
In the summer of the same year, Anthony also joined Thunder.
A big play is finally over.
In the end, the Zen master failed to cross the mire with his triangle attack. Before he took office, the Knicks won 37 games. In the three years he took office, the Knicks won 32 games the most in one year. However, when hornaske “changed evil and returned to the right” made a start of 7 wins and 6 losses with the strategy of blocking and dismantling, and won the praise of Bo Shen and James, he failed to stop the decline of thousands of miles, it ended badly with 29 wins. As for the 54-win record set by coach Woodson in the 12-13 season, no one has broken it so far.
Like Larry Brown, Jerry Sloane and even Popovich baby, Phil Jackson is like a stubborn old captain who can’t board and doesn’t want to board the ship of the new era. They firmly believe in the importance of the discipline, execution and tactical system of the team, and are willing to build an army in several years to make defiant stars a member of this system.
Coincidentally, Jackson and Popovich baby both publicly expressed their dislike for the three-point ball. When Warriors fell behind the grizzly bear 1-2 in 2015, Jackson joked: “NBA analysts gave me some advice to see how the three-point team performed in the playoffs. To be honest… how did it perform?”
Then…….
In fact, Cole’s tactics have many elements of triangle attack, but he will not call it “triangle attack”
Just like Leonard broke the Popovich baby fairy tales of Spurs, the Zen Master’s reserve, elegance, pride, the triangle attack on which he became famous, the control of dressing rooms and stars, they were all swallowed up by the mud of New York.
People once again understand that the stars will grow old, the famous and handsome will fall behind, and time will equally give different background colors to each era. What they are proud of will also make them hit hard.
Sometimes, when we get together and leave, there is nothing immortal.
“After careful thinking and consideration, Phil and I reached a consensus that the Knicks will develop in different directions.”
In June 2017, when James Dolan spoke to the flash, social media and New York reporters, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
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(WEN/Pan Zhili)