That appreciation was about all Fisher was afforded on his way out the door, as he has the ignominy of being canned by his former coach and mentor.
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Fisher leaves the Knicks with an ugly 40-96 record and will reportedly be replaced by assistant coach, Kurt Rambis, who has been named the team’s interim head coach. It seems Fisher, at times, strayed from that with an embarrassing off-court foible and an unwillingness to commit entirely to Jackson’s preferred method of playing. He is also familiar with the triangle offense and Phil Jackson, which make him a favorable candidate for the post.
Yet Fisher didn’t find any success in his first National Basketball Association season, guiding NY to the league’s second-worst record at 17-65.
“Not one second”, Jackson said of whether he’d given any thought to taking the job when he met with the media at the Knicks training facility following Monday’s practice.
Fisher then got off to an embarrassing start this season during training camp.
Jackson eventually turned to Fisher, who was just finishing a long and distinguished playing career by serving as a backup guard with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
“We thought there was a way that our players could play better”, Jackson said. Rambis had a 32-132 record with no playoff appearances in two seasons as head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves from 2009-11.
In October, Barnes and Fisher became involved in an altercation at the Los Angeles-area home of Barnes’ estranged wife, Gloria Govan. The wheels have fallen off of late, though, as NY has won just one game since that date to drop to twelfth in the NBA’s Eastern Conference standings.
“He’s a phenomenal human being and a great coach”, Kerr said.
Jackson had said in 2014 when he hired Fisher, “I’d like to have a prior relationship with a coach so that we know that we’ve gone through some kind of issues together “We’ve dealt with some kind of battle situations”.
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The current losing skid contributed to the timing of the move, but the team was already convinced Fisher, 41, was not transitioning from the role of player to coach effectively, sources told ESPN. And he wasn’t even Jackson’s first choice, that would have been Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who in hindsight obviously made the right choice. This is a very talented team with strong character and I am confident they will succeed.
