CHICAGO _ The man at the top of the coaching tree _ and unquestionably the greatest Knick coach since Red Holzman _ has stamped David Fizdale with his approval.
"He's a good choice for the Knicks," Pat Riley told the Daily News. "And the city."
In firing Phil Jackson and hiring David Fizdale, the Knicks transitioned from their failed Zen Triangle identity to the demanding Heat culture established by Riley.
Fizdale worked as an assistant in Miami for eight seasons, winning a pair of championships behind LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. The well-documented philosophy in Miami strives for peak conditioning and peak work-ethic.
"A culture of consistency, of accountability, of hard work," Erik Spoelstra described recently.
In that setting, Fizdale made a strong impression on Riley.
"A great young coach, he really is," Riley told the News. "And I don't know exactly how many years he has been in the NBA but he's really got a great mind, he's mentally prepared as a coach. He's smart as hell.
"I'm happy for him."
Fizdale started with the Heat in the video room in 1997, but Riley said he didn't know the future Knicks coach until Spoelstra introduced him at Summer League about a decade later. Together, they went 403-241 over eight seasons.
Prior to taking over at Miami as coach and team president in 1995, Riley abruptly resigned from the Knicks via fax _ jumpstarting one of the fiercest rivalries in the NBA. But the contention fizzled over the ensuing years as the Knicks crumbled into disappointment.
In doing his background work on Fizdale, Knicks president Steve Mills said he consulted Riley extensively about his former employee. Fizdale, 43, was a rising star in Miami but was fired last season after less than two years as head coach of the Grizzlies.
"I spent a lot of time talking to Pat about this hire," Mills said. "I asked him a lot of questions. 'What do you think David's learned from his experience in Miami to his experiences in Memphis?'
"Pat had some real insight, what he left with Miami and planned on instilling in Memphis, what went wrong and how he came back to fix it. Pat was very open about the conversations he had with David and gave us a lot of faith about him having learned from the experience."
And Riley's approval goes a long way.
"After you talk to Pat, you don't need to talk to me," Spoelstra said. "You talk to the Godfather and he gives the go-ahead, you don't need to talk to anybody else. Shut down all the other interviews."
