Derek Fisher: Knicks 'will turn around quickly'
New York Knicks head coach Derek Fisher says he believes his team can improve next year and possibly go from worst to first.
[daily_cut.nba]
The Knicks have the league’s worst record at 15-63, and when asked if his team can make a dramatic improvement, he said he thinks they can.
"I guess that's possible, but we are not here trying to squeeze in, we are not here trying to go from 15 to 36," Fisher said, according to the New York Post. “It will turn around quickly.”
"But we don't really have to put a number on it," Fisher added. "We are 6-21 in games [decided] by six points or less this year. So we lost 21 games on two possessions. So we don't have go from 15 to 36 next year. We can go from 15 to 63 if we really want to. But that is up to us."
The league record for improvement from one season to the next belongs to the Boston Celtics, who won 24 games in 2006-07 and then traded for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, won 66 games and the NBA Championship the next season.
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New York will have at least $25 million to spend in free agency and will have All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony back in the fold. Anthony is out for the remainder of the season after having surgery on his left knee. The team also will have at least a top-four pick in June’s NBA draft.
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"Things change so quickly in the game now that it is hard to predict that far ahead," said Fisher, who is in his first season as a head coach. "A team in the playoffs could trade three guys and start rebuilding next year, and you have been planning all summer to face these three guys and they are not there anymore.
- Scooby Axson
