After having the worst season in franchise history the New York Knicks are relevant again this year. Through half of the season the Knicks are 20-21 and have a fighting chance to make the playoffs as they are just one game out of the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference. Despite the major improvement over last year head coach Derek Fisher's job still may not be safe, according to Brian Windhorst and Zach Lowe of ESPN.
In Fisher's first season with the Knicks he was given an extremely undermanned roster to work with and unsurprisingly they only won 17 games. To add on to that Carmelo Anthony missed the entire second half of the season so Fisher was also without his best player. Fisher, though, did not do himself any favors in his first year as a head coach as he looked overwhelmed and at times incompetent.
This season Fisher has done a much better job as the Knicks are playing well and he is reportedly very good at motivating the team. Some Knicks players have questioned Fisher's ability to grasp the X's and O's but he does delegate those responsibilities to assistant coaches who are better suited for that type of thing. Fisher has reportedly grown as a strategist in his second season and is likely only going to get better as he gains more experience.
Windhorst and Lowe's report did not say that Fisher is on the hot seat by any means but Windhorst did say that "it's not all rainbows and lollypops there." After that Windhorst assigned the situation just a yellow flag not a red flag meaning that Fisher's seat isn't hot but he also doesn't have great job security at the moment.
Overall it would be a huge surprise if the Knicks let go of Fisher now, or anytime soon. Yes Fisher struggled mightily last season as a rookie head coach but they held onto him for year two and both he and the Knicks have shown massive improvement. Unless there is tension between someone in the organization and Fisher, there doesn't seem to be any reason why the Knicks would have changed their minds between last offseason and now.
A few other reasons why Fisher is likely to stay are Phil Jackson and, less so, his contract. Jackson wanted one of his disciples for the job so he could teach the triangle and pushed hard for Fisher so he likely wants him to stay. Also Fisher is only in the second year of his five year $25 million deal so they would owe him money to not coach the team if he were fired.
