Forget what the fans want or wanted. We only have our intuition and some game tape. These guys have the resources and scouting to know who can and most likely won't succeed in the league. Ofcourse there're other factors and intangibles, but 99.99% of the time the fans don't have access to college practices, analytics, physicals, etc etc.
Phil is just a stubborn scrub who isn't good at anything but maybe coaching.
Lol y'all are stubborn as ****. I hate Phil too but he deserves credit where it's due. Maybe it's not even him, by many accounts it was 99% Clarence Gaines Jr. and the 1% Phil was responsible for was pulling the trigger. Regardless, SOMEBODY in that front office deserves credit for nailing the KP pick because it was FAR from the "sure thing" pick yall are making it out to be.
I mean, you're acting like just because scouts have "resources" that fans don't, they never **** up picks. ****** up picks happen all the time. Scouting players isn't everything and very often scouts make bad evaluations that **** up a franchise.
Drafting KP at 4 wasn't anything close to what it would be like if he had the 1st pick, for instance, and drafted Towns. Then I would agree with the point yall are making. But to not give Phil, or at least somebody within his front office at the time, ANY credit for drafting Porzingis is crazy.
If yall remember back to that season instead of acting like KP was this hyped up "cant miss" prospect in retrospect, most scouts actually considered the 2015 draft a "4 man draft" for most of the season, between KAT, Jah, DLo (who came up late in the game), and Mudiay (was projected #1 in most preseason mocks). Most mocks leading up to the draft actually had the Knicks selecting Mudiay, plus Justise Winslow was a late riser after helping lead Duke to the title and earning James Harden comparisons (which were ridiculous). Sure, some experts had KP pegged at 4, but it was far from a lock selection where any GM makes that pick.
So Phil also deserves SOME credit for putting himself on the line by drafting a relatively unknown "project" who him and his team considered the BPA, despite overwhelming scrutiny from the fans/media, because he sure as **** would receive the blame if it didn't work out.
You're just a hater if you can't acknowledge that. I hate Phil as well, but I hate him because he was an arrogant **** who cared more about bringing back the triangle and collecting paychecks than winning. I am not a "hater" though in the sense that it reaches a point of ignorance and I can't give him credit for anything.
I also acknowledge that despite everything, he wasn't nearly as bad as Layden/Isiah, simply for the fact that unlike them, he actually didn't trade our first round picks and gave us a chance at developing a future with high draft picks like KP/Frank, instead of mortgaging our future over and over again for players that were never gonna help us win like Layden and Isiah. The one year Phil didn't have a first round pick to capitalize on was because it was traded before he got there for Bargs.
Sure he ****** up our future by doing dumb *** **** like signing Noah to a ridiculous contract, but there's a very low bar here as far as Knicks' GMs go this century. At least Noah didn't cost us 2 unprotected lottery picks.
IMO anyone who thinks Phil was a worse GM than Layden or Isiah is either suffering from SERIOUS recency bias and/or didn't experience those years first hand. Because those years were bad and there were no young players or draft picks to look forward to either. Watching some of those Knicks teams with no future and an offense run through fat ******* **** Eddy Curry, who cost us 2 ******* lotto picks which became Aldridge and Noah, being a fat *** black hole in the paint was borderline torture.
The real OGs will remember my Eddy Curry rants back in the day. Still my least favorite Knick ever by a mile.
I wouldn't wish suffering through the Larry Brown season - where we had the 2nd worst record in the NBA, no draft pick, no cornerstone young players, and a coach who quit on the team in a manner I have never seen from a coach before while publicly feuding and mentally ******* up our franchise player at the time permanently - on my worst enemy. Easily the worst season I've ever experienced as a Knicks fan and amidst all the bull **** over the years, there really isn't a close 2nd.
Up to that point our worst home loss ever. I don’t think I’ve ever been that angry about anything since. 
