New York Knicks

During a radio interview, Jeff Hornacek spoke about the point guard position and other elements of the New York Knicks’ future.

Recently hired New York Knicks head coach Jeff Hornacek made an appearance on “The Hahn and Humpty Show” on ESPN 98.7 FM and spoke, among other things, about adding a new point guard to the roster.

Hornacek was quick to complement his incumbent lead guards, before sounding off on the positives of adding another.

“The point guards we have, Jerian (Grant) is just a young player who is learning his way. He’s going to get better and better as the years go on with the experience. And Jose (Calderon) is on the later side of it so if we can find a point guard who, that’s the 27, 28-year-old guy who has the experience and still has a lot of juice left, sure that would make us better. And the more shooters you can get, the better also.”

This “27, 28-year-old guy” that Hornacek is describing sounds a lot like free agent Mike Conley, 28.

Conley is a career 37 percent shooter from three-point range and has plenty of playoff experience. He would surely make the Knicks better as he’s an excellent decision maker and one of the best pick and roll players in the NBA.

The only drawback is that Conley has played in mostly slow offenses during his career. Switching to the Knicks new up-tempo/quasi-triangle offense would take some getting used to.

Hornacek once again spoke about the offense, reiterating his faith in the triangle again, but also laying claim to his own view on how things should be done. Emphasis on the word should.

“Obviously, we’re going to run aspects of the triangle…. It’s a good weapon to have the way you space the floor, that can lead to a lot of reads, that’s what makes it difficult. It takes a while for guys to really learn it. But with that being said, I like to get the ball up and down the court, have more opportunities, pick up the pace so there will be a lot of early offense and then you can always get to the aspects of the triangle.”

So this guy really likes the triangle, but he wants to play fast. Kinda. He made sure to mention the dreaded “aspects of the triangle” line. Isn’t straying from the holy offense so brilliant that it’s also a philosophy of life one of the reasons Derek Fisher was fired? Hornacek’s hiring still doesn’t make sense.

Hornacek spoke at length about how much he planned on using Kristaps Porzingis in the offense, and if it would take away possessions from Carmelo Anthony.

“They’re going to be great weapons for us. Carmelo’s a great player, he’s going to be able to get into positions where he carries us some nights. And then other nights it’s going to be other guys. And then Kristaps, with his ability, his size, he’s going get better and better as the years go on. We hope to put him in different positions to take advantage. If they play a small guy on him, we’ll work on his post up stuff or a way to get him the ball inside and dominate in there. Or if they try to put a big guy on him, he can work his outside game. Those are two great weapons to have, we’ll use both of them. But it’s not going to be, ‘Hey we need Carmelo by himself to beat this team; we need Kristaps by himself.’ We need to make it a team game where all guys are contributing and all guys feel like they’re a big part of it and that’s how you win.”

A generic answer from Hornacek, but the right one. Anthony and Porzingis have a rapport on and off the court. If the Knicks want to win in the short term they need to keep that duo together.

We won’t really know what the new head coach’s plans are for the offense or what it will look like until we see the Knicks play.

For now we can speculate about who Jeff Hornacek wants running the point and what his stars will do.