Q&A with NBA reporter for Bleacher Report Howard Beck on the Knicks

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NBA reporter for Bleache Report, Howard Beck, talked with Sportando about the New York Knicks season so far.

1) Could you tell us your opinion about Knicks first months of the season? Knicks are the worst team in the NBA at the moment.

The Knicks have a lot of problems, but the biggest one is a simple lack of talent. Carmelo Anthony is the only Knicks player who ranks among the top 15 at his position. In fact, none of the other Knicks starters would even start for most NBA teams. Jose Calderon is probably their second best player, but he's 33 and slowing down. He would be a backup guard on a good team. The Knicks' frontcourt has been a disaster all season. Amare Stoudemire, Quincy Acy, Sam Dalembert, Andrea Bargnani -- none of these guys should be an NBA starter. The Knicks lack defense, rim protection, rebounding, 3-point shooting. Injuries have also played a part in this disastrous start. Carmelo, Shumpert and JR Smith have all missed games. And of course, they are also adapting to a new coach (Derek Fisher) and a new offense (the triangle). No one should be surprised that the Knicks are terrible. 

2) What is your opinion about Andrea Bargnani? He has been criticized very hard, especially from Marc Berman of the Post.

Bargnani can't seem to stay healthy. But even when he's on the court, he's just not a very good NBA player. At his best, Bargnani is a very good shooter. But he's not particularly good at anything else -- passing, driving posting up or playing defense. He also doesn't seem to have much passion for the game. I will be curious to see if any NBA teams show interest in him this summer. I won't be surprised if he returns to Europe.

3) What do you expect from Phil Jackson, whiche could be his next move . Do you expect some trades before the deadline of Februay 19 or he will be waiting the offseason?

Phil Jackson made the right move when he decided to trade JR Smith and Iman Shumpert. The Knicks were going nowhere this season, even with those two. Their priority has to be rebuilding the roster around Carmelo Anthony, and they need salary-cap room to do that. The trade cleared an extra $10 million from the books, giving the Knicks about $27 million in cap room to use this summer. Smith was a poor fit in the triangle offense, and a bad influence in the locker room, with a poor work ethic. If Jackson is going to instill a better "culture" in the organization, he needed to get rid of players like Smith and Samuel Dalembert, who was waived this month.

I believe Jackson will continue to be aggressive between now and the Feb. 19 trade deadline, with a goal of clearing more cap room and acquiring either young players or draft picks to help rebuild. It will not be easy. The Knicks do not have much of value to trade. They have few players that other teams would want, and they can't afford to trade any draft picks. It's possible the Knicks will waive Bargnani if they cannot trade him by Feb. 19. The real work to turn this team around will begin this summer, when the Knicks will have a high draft pick and all of that cap room to spend.

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4) What do you think of Derek Fisher as head coach? 

It's very difficult to judge a coach, especially a rookie coach, when he has such a poor roster. There isn't much Fisher, or any coach, could do with this group. He also has the challenge of implementing the triangle offense, which is notoriously difficult for players to master. It requires high-IQ players, and the Knicks have very few. They are struggling to run it. Would a different system be more effective for the Knicks? Maybe. But it doesn't seem that Fisher has that option. Jackson wants him to run the triangle, so that's what they're doing. We won't know how effective the system can be with Carmelo, or how effective a coach Fisher will be, until the Knicks get better players.

5) How do you judge Phil Jackson’s work so far?

Phil Jackson has been on the job for less than a year, so it's really too soon to judge him, either. The team he inherited last spring had no first-round draft pick and no salary-cap room. So he hasn't had much of a chance to put his imprint on the team. Even if the Knicks had let Carmelo leave as a free agent, they would have had zero cap space last summer. So the roster this season would have been even worse. 

We can judge Jackson on four major moves so far: 

1. Replacing Mike Woodson with Derek Fisher. 

2. Trading Tyson Chandler and Raymond Felton for Jose Calderon and Sam Dalembert. 

3. Re-signing Carmelo. 

4. Trading JR Smith and Iman Shumpert. 

Firing Woodson was an easy call. He was not effective last season, and several players had tuned him out. Hiring Fisher, just weeks after Fisher played his final game, was risky. It's too soon to know how that will work out. Trading Chandler and Felton was understandable at the time. Felton was terrible last season, and would have been a lousy fit in the triangle. Acquiring Calderon, a better shooter and smarter playmaker, was a justifiable move. (The Knicks also believed Calderon could help them recruit Marc Gasol this summer.) And Chandler's play had really eroded last season. It appeared he was physically breaking down, and he was generally unhappy with the team. He needed a change of scenery. That trade looks bad now, with Chandler again thriving in Dallas. I don't think he would have been nearly as energized if he were still in New York, though. As for Carmelo, the Knicks basically had to re-sign him. I don't think he's worth the $124 million contract he received, but the Knicks couldn't let a scorer of his ability walk away for nothing, either. If it doesn't work out, they can always trade him later. As I mentioned earlier, trading Smith and Shumpert was also the right move, mostly because it took Smith's $6.4 million salary off the books for next season. No team would take Smith without including another asset, so the Knicks had to give up Shumpert. Although Shumpert was one of the Knicks' few young prospects, he has not developed much in four years, and he will be a free agent this summer. They probably would not have re-signed him anyway.

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6) Most of people, specially abroad,  are thinking that the biggest problem is Jim Dolan. In his first 15 years as a chairman Knicks had a few playoffs appereance?

Every team is a reflection of its owner. Unfortunately for Knicks fans, this franchise has one of the worst owners in North American professional sports. Jim Dolan has spent generously on the payroll, and on coaches and executives as well. But he has meddled repeatedly in basketball operations, creating chaos and instability over the last 15 years. Consider this: The Knicks have had five different general managers in the last seven years (Isiah Thomas, Donnie Walsh, Glen Grunwald, Steve Mills and now Jackson). They have had six head coaches in the last 11 years (Lenny Wilkens, Larry Brown, Isiah Thomas, Mike D'Antoni, Mike Woodson, Derek Fisher). Every new GM has his own vision for building a team. Every new coach has his own offensive and defensive philosophies. No team can thrive with that kind of instability. All of that blame goes to the owner. A good owner hires the best people and then lets them do their jobs. Dolan has consistently interfered in basketball operations, most notably when he took over the Carmelo trade negotiations, ultimately giving up too many assets. Walsh was opposed to the final form of the deal, but Dolan pushed it through. A year later, Walsh resigned.

7) Last but not the least in your recent, fantastic, analysis you talked about the lack of talent of the Knicks, what do you think they have to change to improve in the future?

As dreary and dreadful as this season is, I think the Knicks are on the right path now. In June, they will have their highest draft pick since 1985. In July, they will have at least $27 million to spend on free agents. They have an elite scorer in Carmelo Anthony. They just need to surround him with better players. I'm not saying it will be easy, or that the Knicks can turn this around in one summer. But Phil Jackson was right to start tearing down this roster, and the challenge now becomes how to build a better, more logical and sustainable program.