Knicks players believe in David Fizdale and that's a good start

Encyclopedias have been written on the philosophy of coaching. It may sound so complicated, so Byzantine. But it was the great Chuck Daly who reduced the profession to its simplest expression, at the time when he massed his ego on the Pistons of Bad Boy, assuming the role of leader of the Dream Team at the 1992 Olympics .

"It's a league of players," he said, referring specifically to the NBA, but, being understood that he was talking about any sport, any game, any level. "They allow you to coach them or they do not. Once they are no longer allowed to train, you are about to leave.

It's as simple as that. This certainly goes against people who still prefer Vince Lombardi's vision of the coach-player relationship, where the coach is God and every syllable that he pronounces the gospel. But show me a coach who lost his players and I will show you a coach about to lose his job. All sports Every game. All levels.

This, at its base, is the essence of David Fizdale. From the moment he appeared as a candidate to coach the New York Knicks, that's what remained: the endorsements that flocked to all constituencies of the league. The players liked him well. Better: they loved playing for him.

It's only been 21 games so far, and the record is still only 7-14, and there have already been a lot of games where his usual X's, O's, sub-schemas and recalls of the situation as a whole annoyed fans of Knicks. that do not just encourage 82 losses and the 14% chance of winning the lottery that goes with it.

But this is already obvious:

Fizdale is Daly's mantra pushed to the extreme.

It was enough to see how happy his players were for Fizdale on Sunday night, when the Knicks defeated the Grizzlies 103-98 for the first three-game winning streak of the Fizdale era, a year after the Grizzlies. he fired. It was enough to listen to them after soaking in ice water.

"I took this for myself," said Emmanuel Mudiay. "We all took this as a personal matter. We wanted to go out and get a win for him. "

Trey Burke said, "I saw tears. [Fizdale] wanted this one. I'm glad we had it for him. "

This is not what players have to say about coaches. Heck, it was such a good weekend for Fizdale that even his former enemy, Marc Gasol, the only exception to the otherwise unanimous player's lovefest, was generous in his praise.

"I am a better player because of David," Gasol told Fizdale, with whom he had pioneered last year. "I can say that 100 percent. Although last year was very difficult for everyone, I am a better player this year and I have a lot to do with him. "

Again: only 21 games. Only seven wins. Nobody is trying to hang a Fizdale banner next to Red Holzman. But look around: Todd Bowles – which players seem to love – has never found a way to translate this devotion into results. Pat Shurmur is already more defensive than a prosecution witness questioned. Mickey Callaway seemed overwhelmed during the big games of 2018. Aaron Boone won 100 games and yet it seems like you can not find 100 Yankees fans happy to be his manager.

It has never been easy to do this job. In 2018, this sometimes seems impossible. Especially in New York.

"You can not just say," Hey, that's what we're going to do. You have to go out and every day you have to follow the process, "said Memphis coach JD Bickerstaff, this weekend, speaking of his former boss." And being able to coach a guy like LeBron James and guys like Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade [when Fizdale was a Heat assistant] and to be able to see these things, to be able to have these conversations about the situations they were in, it also helps. "

But also guys like Burke and Mudiay, that other coaches have never managed to reach, guys who flourish under Fizdale. This does not mean that it lasts forever; This was not even the case for Daly, who understood the job as well as anyone. This means that the Knicks are visible again. This means that in a city where coaches are thrown under the LIRR for the sport by their own compatriots, there is a team where the players really like the coach and seem to like playing for him.

And we start to see: this is not a bad place to start.