Knicks Organization Cleans House, Prepare for the Future

 

The New York Knicks are at it, once again. Mike Woodson cleared out his office Monday morning, and New York Knicks owner, James Dolan, returned to a process he’s been accustomed to for the past decade and a half. That process would be searching for a coach who can lead the team from the big apple to their first championship in nearly four decades.

Many experts claim Woodson, who lead the Knicks to their first Divisional title last season since 1994, should have done more with this year’s team. With starting center, Tyson Chandler out for the majority of the season due to injury, and multiple off the court issues, Woodson should not be left alone on the blaming list. However, when a team has a significant turnaround for the worse, as the Knicks did, coaches get fired. As excruciating as it sounds, that kind of situation is common place in the brutal profession called coaching.

With the mid-season hiring of team president, Phil Jackson, many speculate whether or not he will take over the coaching reigns. In more ways than one, coach Jackson is not the savior. Despite coaching arguably two of the greatest players of all time, Jackson won’t have Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant this time to shine in his patent triangle offence. The whole concept of only coaching home games and having an assistant coach the road games, is staring disaster straight in the face.

Sorry to break the news to all those Carmelo Anthony lovers, but he is also far from the solution to your problems. Anthony has proved throughout his career that he can’t win in the playoffs, and with him turning 29 years old in May, time is becoming more relevant. The best move for the Knicks, in their current state, is to try and get as much value for Anthony while they can. Anthony is expecting to make a max-level contract, and quite honestly I don’t think he’s worth it.

With the recent addition of former sixth man of the year, Lamar Odom, you just hope coach Jackson is able to transition from coach to president. Odom hasn’t experienced much success since his days with the Los Angeles Lakers, however Jackson seems confident Odom can return and ignite a winning mentality.

Regardless with what happens with Odom, the main priority for Jackson and the Knicks right now is to hire the right coach. A quality candidate for the job, in my opinion, is current NBA analyst for TNT, Steve Kerr. Kerr, who played for Jackson in Chicago from 1993-1998, has expressed interest in the job and has said that he anticipates hearing from Jackson in the next few days.

If Kerr doesn’t get the job, expect Jackson to stay within his inner circle and attempt to hire someone with whom he has a relationship. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks, but expect the Knicks to start making decisions sooner rather than later.

Can’t Fill The Seats

As if their play on the court wasn’t disappointing enough the Pistons, Bobcats, and Bucks can’t even fill the seats if they gave tickets away, literally. The Detroit Pistons rank in the bottom four in attendance this year and according to ESPN, they are averaging about 14,500 tickets sold per home game this season. The Palace of Auburn Hills seats around 21,000 so it doesn’t take a genius to see that the Pistons are struggling with fan support.

These ticket sales are almost 3,000 tickets less than what IU men’s college basketball is averaging this season. It’s not the fact that the tickets are to expensive and people can’t afford to come to the games, because the team is literally “giving” the tickets away for free and fans still don’t show up, not even the season ticket holders…thats embarrassing.

But, the Pistons aren’t the only team struggling to fill the seats. The Milwaukee Bucks are right there with them. The Bucks are the NBA’s worst team in average attendance per home game at around 13,300 and they currently hold the league’s worst record. In recent efforts to boost attendance, they have been having promo nights like “Buck Night”, where tickets for children under the age of 14 are only $1, but that still has not worked.

The Charlotte Bobcats are a team that is on a whole other level. For years Michael Jordan’s organization has struggled to bring fans to their games, but I guess it doesn’t help when you only win seven games in a shortened season. If you ever feel inclined to attended a Bobcats games you can find tickets on Stubhub for around a dollar, of course its against teams like the Bucks and Pistons though (don’t expect to see King James at this rate).

The Bobcats also have come up with promo deals, in 2012 they offered “Pay the Pick” promotion, meaning if the Bobcats landed the number one lottery pick fans can get seats for just a buck, if they landed the number two lottery they can get tickets for two bucks and so on. Unfortunately for them deals like this still have not helped with an increase in attendance.

In my opinion these struggling organizations need to adapt the money back guarantee promo like the Suns used last year. This gave the opportunity for the fans to get a full refund for their ticket if they were not completely satisfied with the overall atmosphere of the game. I think this method would work a lot better than just giving away free tickets, to a team that just flat out stinks. It gives the fan more incentive to attended the game, as oppose to not showing up since they did not even pay.

As for this season, these teams need to cut their losses and plan for the future. Bring some excitement to the organization maybe through the draft or off-season trades, but they have to do something to make the fan actually want to attend a game rather than watching it from the couch.

So Close…Yet So Far

By: Natalie Skizas

If there is one thing you learn about going to Indiana University, it’s the love of basketball. A school and town centered on its love for the game. With talented players recruited from all over the country, they combine to make the historically good program the school is known for. With every remarkable team there are always star players, and with that comes the NBA draft. Recently one of Indiana’s best, Cody Zeller, had been picked 4^th in the draft by the Charlotte Bobcats and as you can imagine this may have been a somewhat unfortunate transition as he headed to a team with a less then stellar reputation.

The Charlotte Bobcats have not had the best run in the NBA. Finishing there 2011-2012 season with 7 wins and 59 losses bringing there winning percentage to a .106, they stole the title of the worst record ever previously held by the 76ers who went 9-73. The following season they went 21-61 a small improvement, but improvement nonetheless bringing their percentage up to .245. Due to those previous records Fox Sports published an article titles: Top 10 Worst Sports Team Ever, and unfortunately the Bobcats were ranked first. However, Bobcat fans keep the dream alive, as they are currently 22-29, showing again slight improvement from the previous year already.  Although this team has demonstrated they have made baby steps towards bettering their players and improving their season, in a conference with the Heat (2 time consecutive champions), there really is not much time for growth and advancement. In the past 3 seasons combined the Charlotte Bobcats have gone 62-168 and have not made the playoffs, which leads fans to wonder where things are going wrong.

A main problem the team faces is no signs of consistency, or strong ownership. Although Michael Jordan has been named one of the greatest basketball players of all time, he clearly has not proven his worth through ownership. There has been criticism from outside sources claiming he has complained about the cost of business and that he has lost his competitive edge. Not only this but he has missed multiple crucial opportunities for trades, and has signed off on trades that have in turn hurt the Bobcats, for example the trade of Tyson Chandler and Gerald Wallace. Not only ownership but also the inconsistent coaching staff has aided in the Bobcats lack of success. Since 2004 they have gone through 6 had coaches, with the most recent being Steve Clifford. Although he has shown to make improvements, working with a team with such little experience is not easy. Of the 15 players on the team only 2 have made it to the first round of the playoffs. With the leader being Kemba Walker averaging 17.7 points per game, the Bobcats are going to need another player to shine through if they want to keep there playoff, and ultimately championship dreams alive.

So Bobcat fans although in the past, and present the Bobcats have shown little to no improvement, there is always hope for the future. 

The Problem with the Charlotte Bobcats is…..

By Josie

Who better to kick off the There’s Always Next Year Coverage than the team that owns the title, “Worst record in NBA history”, the Charlotte Bobcats.

That being said, Here are five reasons why the Bobcats will continue to have trouble finding success.

1) Ownership

Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, but at the same time one of the worst owners in the NBA. Give him credit for trying, but he’s no Magic Johnson when it comes to business and his golf game seems to be higher on his priority list than the Bobcats roster. There have also been complaints that Jordan does not spend enough time in Charlotte to really get to know the team and fans. That being said, Jordan himself is still marketable for the franchise, but his decisions as owner have almost overshadowed that for the fans in Carolina, that’s when you know it’s bad.

2) Competing With Duke and Carolina

The state of North Carolina is a very College Basketball based market. With two teams that have a combined nine National Championships, if fans have to decided between going to one of those games over a Bobcats game, well the choice seems obvious. Bobcats tickets are affordable for college students but to get them off campus when they have a variety of successful sports to choose from without leaving campus limits is a marketing challenge that the ‘cats have yet to get over.

3) Coaching Changes

In the ten year history of the Bobcats they have had six different head coaches. No coach has been tenured more than three seasons. The coaches who were able to get multiple years tended to increase their winning percentage each year. Bernie Bickerstaff, the teams first coach, started at .220 and raised it to .402. Larry Brown took the team to its first and only playoff appearance, but after starting the next season 9-19, he was replaced in-season by Paul Silas. Silas finished the season stronger but next season had the team with the worst ever record in the NBA,7-59. That ended his tenure obviously and Mike Dunlap came in for one season. The current coach is Steve Clifford, and hopefully he can give the Bobcats some consistency (if he gets more than 3 seasons) because at 22-29 so far this season, he has potential to get the team out of the bottom.

4) The NBA Draft Lottery

The poor Bobcats fans have never experienced the excitement of a number one pick (although as a Cavs fan I can tell them sometimes it’s overrated….cough, cough Anthony Bennet).  Although they have had the second and third picks the past two drafts and gotten Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Cody Zeller, and these guys are talented, they are the type of guys who need 1-2 years to develop. MKG needs to work on his range of shots….his jumper is not the most beautiful thing in the world. I saw Cody Zeller play for two years in college and think he’s a great addition to the Bobcats, but there’s a reason he was not a one-and-done in college, he’s a player that needs time and a little refinement as shown by this missed dunk.

5) The Name

When Michael Jordan announced that the team would be rebranding to it’s former name, the Hornets next season, it was the best thing to happen to the team in a while (Shout-out to the New Orleans Pelicans for making this possible). Identity is very important to a team and taking a name of a team is usually something hard for a city to get over (ex: the Baltimore Colts debacle). But for now they’re still the Bobcats, not to be confused with the Carolina Panthers, the other cat team in the state.

So Bobcats fans, there’s the bad, but I know you like to focus on the good so here are some entertaining YouTube videos: