Building a productive relationship with Kristaps Porzingis and devising a plan for his three point guards are among the questions facing new Knicks coach David Fizdale, Marc Berman of the New York Post writes. Fizdale plans to travel to Latvia in the near future to meet with his franchise player, who is rehabbing his knee injury there.
Juggling the minutes of Emmanuel Mudiay, Frank Ntilikina and Trey Burke will be a challenge for the ex-Grizzlies coach, Berman continues. Learning from his mistakes in Memphis, particularly in the way he dealt with veteran center Marc Gasol, is another thing Fizdale must do in order to be a success in New York, Berman adds.
In other Knicks-related news:
- Former Magic assistant coach Jay Hernandez is a name to watch as Fizdale selects his staff, Michael Scotto of The Athletic tweets. He has a solid reputation in player development and player relationships after working with several NBA players as a trainer, Scotto adds.
- Mudiay said the coaching change has energized the team, as he told Berman in a separate story. “Nobody has played with him yet over here except Troy Williams. But I’m not the only one excited. Everyone else is, too,’’ he said. Mudiay believes Fizdale, a point guard during his playing days, can help with his development.
- Center Enes Kanter, who exchanged barbs with LeBron James this season, playfully challenged the Cavaliers superstar to sign with the Knicks during a Twitter Q&A session, Ian Begley of ESPN relays. “You really want to be king of New York? Come and prove it. I’ll see you July 1st, brother,” Kanter said in the Twitter video. James is expected to opt out of his contract this summer but the Knicks are an extreme long shot, considering their salary-cap issues and their rebuilding status.
Kanter needs to shut up and get off social media, dude is annoying.
Really, Kanter is annoying? So, he tries to recruit LBJ through a couple of terse comments and he needs to get off of Twitter?
I don’t think they’ll be playing three point guards, I can see Frank sliding over to the two more often this year if he can improve his outside shooting. He’s got the size and defensive abilities to guard that position.
Hmm.. Trade Mudiay and Frank for whatever you can get. Play Burke.
Agreed.
Fizdale going to visit KP is definitely critical to the future of the Knicks. However, on his way back from Latvia hopefully he changes planes in Paris and visits with Ntilikina to introduce himself and give him his summer homework. Of the guards, I single out Frank because he is 19 and should be an important piece to Fizdale’s plans. Fizdale a defensive minded Coach should want to mold the development of his most defensive minded player.
Sorry, but Frank is here to stay, as he’s already an impact defender on a team that hasn’t played any defense for almost 20 years.
Mudiay is the first guy that Fizdale needs to makes his developmental coaching bones with. Good, bad or somewhere in between, the Knicks need to find out about this guy in the first half of next season. That starts NOW, with an off season commitment by the player to work on this game and conditioning, and the coach providing a path to the role the player wants.