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Phil Jackson spoke to the media, said some good things and some not-so-good things

This might not turn out the way we'd hoped.

By MattRW
Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

As is tradition, Phil Jackson gave a season post-mortem today, and he said a lot of things.

Here's the full thing if you want to see it for yourself:

Don't worry, I'm here to break it down for you if you don't feel like watching that. Let's start with the positive stuff, yeah?

On the growth of the team, and the rookies in particluar

The first three things are true, and the latter two are cool to hear, especially the Kristaps thing. Kris said this afternoon that he doesn't yet feel comfortable reaching out to free agents, so hopefully Phil can put his mind at ease about that and convince him to join Carmelo Anthony on the recruiting trail this summer.

Here's another interesting team-building thing, by the way:

Cool, cool, cool. Notice that he specifically doesn't mention Arron Afflalo. Peace the fuck out, Arron.

On criticism of the Triangle and its importance to him

This is less cool, though I get it. Phil thinks, and can offer evidence in the form of 11 championships to show, that his system works. And it'd be fine if he'd prefer that the principles of that system to stick in place but was willing to consider coaches outside of his immediate circle in the interest of hiring the best head coach. You know, like a rational person who isn't only concerned with self-affirmation. But NO! We got this stuff:

On the upcoming head coach interview process

Just to be clear, he actually didn't say "probably" in the first tweet. Regardless, this better be some serious misdirection. Minutes prior to Phil saying all this stuff, Melo outright demanded that the team expand its view when looking at head coaching candidates. Yet here comes Phil Jackson, talking about how important it is that the next coach runs the triangle. A good team president would probably make an exhaustive list of candidates, then narrow it down to 5-10 to bring in for interviews, then have a second interview with a few of those people before offering the job to one of them. But instead, he's implying that he's going to make a list that looks like this:

Phil list

You know who isn't on there? Tom Thibodeau, AKA the guy anyone in their right mind would look to hire. And I'm not saying Phil has to hire Thibs! There's no denying that Thibodeau has butted heads with his bosses in the past, and I wouldn't blame Phil for wanting to avoid that. But he'd be crazy to refuse to meet with Thibs, or any other candidate for that matter, simply because he or she doesn't necessarily want to run Phil's system.

Now, there are two things worth considering here: 1. we don't know what he means when he refers to people he "knows;" and 2. he's often done something completely different than what he tells the media he plans to do. However, assuming Al Iannazzone isn't twisting Phil's words, he did say he wants the next head coach to run his system. Also, while he has certainly zigged when we expected him to zag in the past, he didn't do that when it came to installing a coaching staff. Let's not forget that he hired Derek Fisher straight out of retirement when he missed out on Steve Kerr and filled part of Fisher's staff with people he, not Fisher, wanted to hire. It seems to be part of the reason the Knicks are in their current, head-coach-less position. That doesn't bode well for the next hire. And really, that misdirection has applied only to player acquisition and retention in the past. But that adds up when you think about it.

I suspect that Phil's ultimate goal is to prove that his system is still relevant and that he can put any player inside it and build a contender. To do that, he needs a coach who runs his system. If the Knicks win a championship with Tom Thibodeau as head coach, then it's not Phil's system that won it for them, it's Thibodeau's. And Phil doesn't want that. I sincerely hope I'm reading this situation incorrectly, but if Phil proves truly unwilling to consider coaches who don't run his system, then we'll all be forced to do what we promised ourselves we never would: beg Jim Dolan to intervene. Please don't make us stoop that low, Phil. Just interview all the best candidates. Please.

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