New York Knicks fire coach David Fizdale after 4-18 start

The revolving door of New York Knicks head coaches has taken another spin.

The team fired coach David Fizdale on Friday after a 4-18 start.

After going 17-65 last season, the Knicks spent $70 million in free agency to upgrade their roster, yet the results simply haven’t been there. They’re one of the worst teams in the NBA, constantly struggling to string together complete performances.

And while the Knicks, under Fizdale, pushed some good teams, they weren’t able to actually close out those games and pick up victories.

Fizdale’s job security with the Knicks became especially tenuous when team president Steve Mills and general manager Scott Perry held an impromptu news conference after a blowout loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Nov. 10.

Mills and Perry said they believed in Fizdale and the coaching staff but needed to see improvement after a 2-8 start. They harped on inconsistency and the sporadic effort the Knicks had shown as issues that needed to be corrected.

This is the second time Fizdale has been fired during a season. The Memphis Grizzlies parted ways with him after they got off to a 7-12 start during the 2017-18 season. The Knicks hired Fizdale hoping he could oversee a rebuild and help turn them back into a contender.

The expectation was that his first season would be a rough one as the Knicks were the youngest team in the NBA, but that the eventual return of Kristaps Porzingis from a torn ACL and the potential addition of another potential star free agent could lead to a brighter future.

Porzingis had a strained relationship with the organization, but Fizdale took steps to mend it, including traveling to Latvia to visit the star forward and his family.

Still, the relationship between Porzingis and the Knicks never healed completely, and they ended up trading him to the Dallas Mavericks in January after he told them he wouldn’t commit to being there long-term. The Knicks included Courtney Lee and Tim Hardaway Jr. in the deal.

They finished last season 17-65 and won the third pick in the NBA Draft, which they used on RJ Barrett.

But they still had hope with so much salary cap space and were prepared to chase stars in free agency, especially Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Instead, the stars all signed elsewhere. Durant and Irving signed with the Brooklyn Nets, exacerbating the disappointment for the Knicks.

Fizdale never found a way to establish an offensive identity, with the Knicks often becoming stagnant and slow on that end of the floor. He lamented his players’ inability to play with the consistent level of trust that was needed to win.

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