The Knicks did the right thing Thursday. They hired the right man. That doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t guarantee anything. But hiring David Fizdale is a step in the right direction, a big step. Fizdale alone doesn’t make them champions or even winners. But it puts them on the right path, points them in the right direction. You start with that.
Fizdale isn’t Red Auerbach, he isn’t Red Holzman, and right now you’d have to say he isn’t even his old boss and his old friend in Miami, Erik Spoelstra. He’s a young coach who had some early speed as an NBA boss in Memphis, making the playoffs his first year, and then ran into a 7-foot speed bump named Marc Gasol and it went sideways for him from there.