Phil can't leave any stone unturned
— -- NEW YORK -- Phil Jackson accelerated a total Knicks teardown Monday when he waived center Samuel Dalembert and shipped out Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith for three space-fillers who may not stay with the team. But did the move to amass more salary-cap space really mark the "culture change" first-year Knicks coach Derek Fisher keeps talking about? Or was it just a repeat of the same memes the Knicks have been feeding fans dating back to 2010 and the summer of LeBron?
Now the Knicks are waiting for 2016 and the summer of Durant?
Been there, done that, got only Amar'e ...
There are two more dramatic and concrete ways Jackson could really break the Knicks' pattern of always selling Someday.
One of them -- that Jackson will privately decide the team's needs are so great that even trading Carmelo Anthony this summer for a multiplayer package should be on the table now (even if it requires Anthony to waive his no-trade clause) -- is a lot more likely to happen than the other obvious pattern-buster.
That would be for Jackson to defy all expectations, ignore his very real health concerns and limits and decide to come down and coach the Knicks himself next season -- even if just for a single season -- to get them to the summer of '16.
That would really be a draw to free agents and leverage his best-ever résumé.
But the idea of Jackson in the front office, telecommuting as a GM and team president and talking about the "journey?" Not so much.
Right now, the Knicks' more immediate plan for the summer of 2015 looks like having a healthy Melo and the hope that Duke center Jahlil Okafor will fall into their lap in the June draft, a best-case scenario which -- despite all the pain still to come this season -- has a 75 percent chance of not happening, remember, based on the percentage of lottery ping-pong balls (only 25 percent) the Knicks would get even if they do finish with the worst record in the league.
It's always smart to never say never in sports, so it's premature to say Jackson can't turn around the Knicks from where they are now. Hell, the whole landscape of the league could change in the seven months between now and the offseason, or between now and the summer of 2016. LaMarcus Aldridge, Rajon Rondo, Marc Gasol, even Kevin Love or Kevin Durant, could all be transformed from content free-agents-to-be to disgruntled players determined to walk. The Knicks have a very painful history of finding out that hoping to sign players who have little incentive to leave where they are is risky. But might it work next time?
There is another way to look at the Knicks' position now: Salary-cap room allows you to swing blockbuster trades, not just sign reluctant free agents.
Shouldn't Jackson at least explore flipping Anthony for someone's star -- even one with an expiring contract if, say, Love's relationship with Cleveland curdles?
Rather than wait to woo a free agent here, which has failed and failed before, would Jackson be better off at least exploring whether he could move Anthony -- a superstar who is under control for another four years after this one, remember -- and then use his so-called magnetic personality and résumé to woo the new guy to stay once he was here? Do you have a better chance of romancing him when he's a free agent or in house for a few months?
Just a thought.
Because, if you haven't noticed, the Knicks can go 5-32 without Anthony as easily as they've gone 5-32 with him.
The same old, same old ain't working here.
From his arrival, Jackson has never seemed totally enamored with Anthony as a winning player. Anthony has never been the player magnet the Knicks hoped he'd be to other free agents. And yet, now that the rebuild is on, we're going to hear the same old wishful memes that we've heard before:
It won't be long before it's said the Knicks will have "a shot" at convincing Gasol to take a pay cut and leave a great situation in Memphis because of his friendship with fellow Spaniard Jose Calderon, or that Fisher might be able to leverage his past as a teammate of Durant's into wooing the Oklahoma City star here despite the pay cut and worse roster Durant have to accept.
It's a new twist on the old story that Mike D'Antoni was going to help get LeBron here because of the friendship they forged on the U.S. Olympic team. And because this is New York.
How'd that go? What has that translated into so far? Are New Yorkers just guilty of parochial or outdated thinking?
Even Melo -- who did walk the talk and come here -- has already had to shoot down a rumor he now wants out, and there remain well-connected folks in the NBA who believe Jackson wouldn't have come back to New York as an exec if James Dolan hadn't made him a ridiculous $12-million-per-year offer he couldn't refuse and that Jackson will never stick around for the end of his five-year deal, especially now that it's a bigger mess than he believed when he declared this season's Knicks a potential playoff team.
So this dated belief that Madison Square Garden is still Eden ignores that it will be Eden only when the Knicks start winning again, not before.
Players and agents are smart. Small-market teams don't have the stigma they used to. Players know their personal brand can flourish anywhere. If outsiders were already concerned Jackson isn't a long-timer here, Monday's moves might have only accelerated that by underscoring the magnitude of this rebuild job.
And when agents and players look at Jackson's résumé as Knicks GM so far, this is what it shows: He didn't land Steve Kerr. Fisher has had growing pains. Jackson got fleeced in the Chandler trade. The Knicks could've had a first-round pick for Shumpert last season and now got three players they don't want for a roster that looks like a D-League team. Calderon, who might also go, hasn't been the guard he was in Dallas. Melo might need knee surgery at age 30.
Jackson himself has already admitted he's concerned free agents won't come here, and that was before Monday's trade guaranteed the team is about to get worse.
To really break the pattern the Knicks are stuck in, it's going to take more than a salary dump. What Jackson did Monday wasn't highly shocking or creative.
Here's hoping what he does next really is.
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