Derek Fisher won a lot of press conferences during the 2014-15 season, just not a lot of games. Fisher is the 26th coach in Knicks history and is ranked dead last in career winning percentage — .207.
Out of a franchise-worst 17-65 record, the only good thing we learned about Fisher in his rookie year is he doesn’t lack for confidence.
Knicks president Phil Jackson will deliver his season-ending, State-of-Zen address early this week. Fisher will remain in the background after a raft of press gatherings in which he has earned the nickname “The Renoir of Rhetoric,” painting lush landscapes when most nights fans saw barren treetops.
If you arrived from Mars, unaware of the NBA standings and sat in on a random Fisher congregation, you’d think he was guiding the Knicks to a transformative season — a triangle renaissance.
At worst, he sounded like a peddler of pre-owned cars. At best, the former point guard from Arkansas-Little Rock sounded like a budding politician — perhaps a future senator from his native Arkansas. Fisher would have made his buddy Bill Clinton — whom he met during his high school years — proud with all his talk about successfully creating a new culture.
Fisher was in rare form after Wednesday’s season finale — a 22-point blowout loss to the Pistons. He was asked if he already knew which players in the locker room would return. Fisher went sentimental on a press corps that had endured nearly five months of meaningless games.
“I’m thankful for each and every one of them regardless if they’re back or not,’’ Fisher said. “These guys will always be my first team, no matter what. Any success we have as an organization or me as a coach will start from there and from these guys. I think a number of them can be back. But at this point, I respect them too much to start trying to determine who that should or shouldn’t be. They’ve given this organization a lot.’’
Moments later, Fisher decided “The Langston Galloway Story” was worthy of “a movie or book.’’ Galloway was indeed the season’s lone bright narrative, an undrafted guard from St. Joseph’s who was signed in January out of the D-League to a 10-day deal and put himself in position for a second-team All-Rookie selection. But please.
Jackson took Fisher off the hook when he blew up the roster on Jan. 5, leaving a rookie coach with a band of summer-leaguers. But it can’t be forgotten Fisher was 5-31 to that point.
In the season’s final days, Fisher made the bold statement the Knicks, with offseason additions, could make the leap to 63 wins.
He also noted the Knicks had lost 21 games by six points or less — two possessions.
The reality is the Knicks were barely in contention most nights. They lost 19 games by 20 or more points — a league high — and 34 games by 13 points or more.
It was a shame Fisher got so little experience managing close games down the stretch. And then there’s this damning statistic: According to The Wall Street Journal, before Carmelo Anthony’s season-ending surgery in late-February, the Knicks committed a whopping 14 shot-clock violations directly after coming out of a Fisher timeout.
Fisher has said it doesn’t matter which good players the Knicks add this offseason. It’s more important the new guys enter into a winning culture. It is still an unknown what kind of culture Fisher has built.
