If you had at any presumed the dismissal of Knicks head coach Derek Fisher was in any way related to his zipper issues and/or endless feud with Matt Barnes, Knicks president Phil Jackson would like to assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. In a wide ranging chat with Today’s Fast Break’s Charley Rosen, Jackson instead infers it really comes to something along the lines of a (wait for it ) millennial mindset :
“Almost from the start, this was a difficult time for Derek. Derek did have a situation that took some focus away from his coaching during the preseason, but I never doubted that his focus was on coaching the team. A divorce and coast-to-coast move with children does put pressure on a person’s life, but that’s the NBA. However, Derek did move the team forward. He was dedicated and he worked hard. The players hustled and, for the most part, stayed as positive as was possible. And Derek did manage to survive last season and to deal with the heavy pressure of the constant losing, which is probably more intense in New York than in any other NBA city.”
“Because Derek was still in a player’s mindset, he’d talk to the guys about diet, how to approach shootarounds, the importance of gameday naps, of game preparation, and of being ready for the practices that are called the day after games. He was training individuals, which was really in tune with the so-called millennials, young people and young players who are primarily interested in themselves. In the NBA, these young guys are concerned with what playing for whatever team they’re on can do for them. Can playing in New York or Boston or LA or wherever add 10K followers to my Twitter account? Will the local media get me lucrative endorsements? What do I have to concentrate on to get a better contract?”