Knicks’ Decision to Hire Hornacek a Surprise, but Just What Phil Jackson Wanted

NEW YORK — If you want to tag along on Phil Jackson’s long, strange NBA journey, it’s best to tighten your seatbelt, and load up on the Dramamine. The road is twisted, the driver wickedly unpredictable.

There may be jarring detours through Sioux City, Iowa and the plains of Nebraska, and there’s no telling where or how the trip will end.

Or who will be sitting in the passenger seat when it’s all over.

Sometime in the last few days, Jackson locked in on Jeff Hornacek as his top choice to coach the New York Knicks, zooming past David Blatt, Frank Vogel and Kurt Rambis, and stunning the entire basketball world in the process.

As B/R first reported Wednesday night, the Knicks and Hornacek are moving toward a deal, though formal contract negotiations had not yet begun. One source monitoring the talks called Hornacek’s hiring “a foregone conclusion,” saying that all parties “want to make this happen.” Another source confirmed, “It’s as close as humanly possible.”

This was not the conclusion anyone expected.

Rambis was widely viewed as Jackson’s top choice, because of their longtime friendship and Rambis’ embrace of Jackson’s offensive system, the triangle offense. Blatt had Madison Square Garden ties and a sturdy resume, Vogel a bright mind and a winning record.

But Hornacek? He has no ties to Jackson, no triangle training and his record is modest.   

This, dear reader, would be a good time to drop the Dramamine—or something stronger, if you’ve got it.

Jackson has never been a linear thinker. He goes where his impulses take him, seeking connections that are apparent only to him.

Hiring Hornacek, 53, who was fired by the Phoenix Suns in February, makes no sense, in general terms. Hiring Hornacek makes perfect sense, through the Phil Jackson prism.

What Jackson values most—in both players and coaches—is an intellectual heft, an ability to think the game, and in Hornacek, he saw an analytical mind whose basketball values are in line with his.

“Intellectual capacity matters,” said one person with insight into Jackson’s decision—and now, more than ever, in an NBA shaped by advanced statistics, player-tracking technology and sports science.

Though the two hardly know each other, Hornacek earned Jackson’s admiration long ago, when Jackson was coaching the Chicago Bulls and Hornacek was firing three-pointers in Phoenix and Utah. There was much to admire: Hornacek arrived as a marginal player, the 46th pick in the 1986 draft, and carved out a career as an elite shooter.

The Bulls and Jazz dueled in consecutive NBA Finals in 1997 and …

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