This season for New York has been one to forget. Historically, this year’s Knicks team is currently on pace to have the fewest losses in a season (currently 15-63). However head coach Derek Fisher believes that things can be turned around.
The Knicks’ head coach said Thursday that the Knicks “will turn around quickly.” When asked about potentially duplicating a dramatic 23-game turnaround like the Milwaukee Bucks (38-40) have done this season, Fisher said the Knicks are capable of something much more stunning.
“I guess that’s possible, but we are not here trying to squeeze in, we are not here trying to go from 15 to 36,” said Fisher, whose Knicks currently have 15 wins. “That’s just not who we are. So it can turn around quickly. It will turn around quickly.
“But we don’t really have to put a number on it,” Fisher continued. “We are 6-21 in games [decided] by six points or less this year. So we lost 21 games on two possessions. So we don’t have go from 15 to 36 next year. We can go from 15 to 63 if we really want to. But that is up to us.”
This sort of scenario reminds me of the 2007-08 then champion Boston Celtics when they went from 24 wins the year before to 66 wins and the Larry O’Brien trophy. They have the potential to do so because like Boston at the time, the Knicks have a superstar in Carmelo Anthony to build around. Obviously they have a lot more work to do.
With the team currently having the worst record, they have a 25% chance of landing the #1 overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. On top of that they have a ton of cap space heading into the offseason with the release of Amar’e Stoudemire and Samuel Dalembert and also by trading away the contracts of J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert.
Now we aren’t expecting a miraculous turnaround with this team, but this off-season will be huge for Phil Jackson as he will try to build a potential franchise that has not had a lot of success in recent years.
