The Empty Promise of Phil Jackson to New York Rumors

Phil Jackson's ties to New York and the Knicks organization are unavoidable, a fact that serves to propagate the long-rumored and overextended possibility of Jackson taking a seat at the head of the Knickerbocker bench.

It's a persistent talking point whenever the coach's seat in New York happens to get a bit warm—err, any warmer than usual, I suppose, considering the media climate—and with the Knicks unable to make any kind of mid-series adjustments against the Miami Heat, current head coach Mike Woodson has rightfully come under fire.

That, I assume, created the foundation for Adrian Wojnarowski's latest column for Yahoo! Sports, in which he advocates that the Knicks break the bank in an attempt to lure Jackson—the league's most renowned superstar whisperer—to New York:

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Money is never an object at the Garden, where the profits come hand over fist regardless of the fact the Knicks set an NBA record on Thursday night with a 13th consecutive playoff loss. It doesn’t matter that they’ve gone 11 years without a postseason victory. The Knicks are an ATM machine, and, now, they have to maximize the assets that they do have moving into the future. They have to get Jeremy Lin and Tyson Chandler, ‘Melo and Amar’e Stoudemire, to play ball together.

Mike Woodson is a solid NBA coach, but he doesn’t have the clout to make this work the way that Jackson can. No one else could command the room the way Jackson can command it. Anthony has too much leverage in the franchise, too much power, and he’s done nothing to deserve it. The Knicks don’t need Jackson for the sake of his résumé, his stature, but for his ability to get talent – especially talent at odds like ‘Melo and Amar’e – to play together.

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Historically, Jackson has earned his reputation. He got Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal to play nice long enough to win three titles, kept the devil on Kobe's shoulder quiet enough so that the Lakers could win two more and actually managed to sell Michael Jordan on a vision of being a remotely decent teammate while keeping Scottie Pippen's ego sufficiently stroked.

He's done incredible things as a negotiator of big personalities, and considering the level of almost comical scrutiny that Knicks teams seem to attract, that kind of mediation would undoubtedly come in handy.

But even the triangle offense that Jackson champions wouldn't seem to be an appropriate fix for what truly troubles the Knicks. Anthony could potentially be a good fit for a role in the triple post, but considering his penchant for over-isolating, could even that system resolve the larger problems of the offense?

And how, exactly, would either the triangle or Jackson's ability to manage personalities reconcile the fact that Amar'e Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler have incredibly redundant offensive skill sets?

There's only so much that a coach—even a legendary one—can do, and though New York wouldn't be totally without use for Jackson's impressive talents, would he really make the kind of difference warranting a blank check?