{"id":504432,"date":"2026-03-05T03:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/504432\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T03:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:13:08","slug":"i-wanted-all-the-action-david-fizdale-admits-he-has-no-regrets-about-his-ny-knicks-tenure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/504432\/","title":{"rendered":"“I wanted all the action” – David Fizdale admits he has no regrets about his NY Knicks tenure"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the hardest jobs in the NBA is undoubtedly being the\u00a0New York Knicks’<\/a>\u00a0head coach. Madison Square Garden has long been called the mecca of basketball, and with that title comes expectation from the players and the head coach.<\/p>\n

The team’s prestige and image stem from its championships in the 1970s, but since then, the franchise has been unable to get back to the league’s mountaintop. Thus, fans expect the team and the city to demand the utmost excellence. So when\u00a0David Fizdale<\/a>\u00a0accepted the role in 2018, he understood exactly what he was signing up for.<\/p>\n

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At that point, the franchise had been searching for stability and a clear identity. Fizdale, who previously coached the Memphis Grizzlies and served as an assistant coach with the Miami Heat, was viewed as a culture-builder with star credibility. But less than two seasons later, he was fired after a horrendous start, leaving New York with the worst record in the East.<\/p>\n

Speaking on “Byron Scott’s Fast Break”, Fizdale looked back at his time in the spotlight and detailed how prestigious yet unforgivable the position is.<\/p>\n

The weight of New York<\/p>\n

Like many, Fizdale was enamored with the history and prestige the Knicks had, despite how bad the roster was at the time. New York, at the time, had no real stars. Kristaps Porzingis had just been traded in the offseason, and the Knicks had no clear identity after finishing with a 29-53 record in 2017. For him, this was a challenge he was ready to tackle as long as it was in New York.<\/p>\n

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“It’s everything they say it is. It’s heavy. I wanted it because it was heavy. I wanted all of that action. I turned down like two other jobs in that cycle. Because I got an interview with like five teams, New York was like my fourth interview, but two teams before that I was like, ‘Let’s make a deal,'”\u00a0he\u00a0shared<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“My a\u2014s is sitting there like let me talk to New York first. Let me hear what they got to say ‘cuz it’s New York and I’m a basketball enthusiast,”\u00a0added Fizdale.\u00a0“To have a shot at one of the big [teams], if you’re a Laker or Boston or New York or Chicago, those right there are historic, like if you got a chance to do it, I don’t matter who on the roster.”<\/p>\n

Fizdale wanted the weight that came with New York; in fact, he embraced it. However, while he had the enthusiasm, it didn’t reflect on the court. In his first season, the Knicks finished with the worst record in the league, winning only 15 games.<\/p>\n

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Success eventually never came as Fizdale was sacked after a 4-18 start the next season. Despite how bad his stint was, he said he doesn’t regret taking the job. However, Fiz did point to one thing he regretted doing.<\/p>\n

“Only thing I regret is I wish I didn’t tank. Because you know, you want to be the company man and you want to do everything you can to make the team better, and all of that, but only one m\u2014r is getting fired,”\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n

“When you take 17 wins in a season and donate 60-plus losses to the draft cause, that s\u2014t sticks. And you’re trying to get another job, people just look at your record. Automatically, that s\u2014t ain’t sexy to hire,”\u00a0he added.\u00a0“But you do that ‘cuz a lot of time, s\u2014t, you ain’t got a choice. If I regret anything, it’s just that. And that was more on me agreeing to do that.”<\/p>\n

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Related: “Are you kidding me?” – Reggie Miller shuts down criticism about Larry Bird not being dominant today<\/a><\/p>\n

Fizdale had a hard time after the firing<\/p>\n

Fizdale also admitted that the firing and the public response to his coaching led to a very depressing period in his life, when he and his wife already had trouble conceiving a child. However, things turned bright for him when, the day after the league had announced it would be shutting down due to the pandemic, his wife told him she was pregnant.<\/p>\n

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“So I get fired in 2019, December 2019. I was down man. You losing the Garden, you ain’t get it going, like you beating yourself up. Depression is real. I was moping about me, the New York thing, moping and just my ego,”\u00a0shared Fizdale.<\/p>\n

“And when she showed me that (ultrasound picture), and it was like everything just melted and I was like, ‘F\u2014k New York,'”\u00a0he continued.\u00a0“Not like f\u2014k New York, but like f\u2014k that situation.”<\/p>\n

Ultimately, things would turn out okay for Fizdale, who became an assistant coach for one of the teams he wanted to be in, the Los Angeles Lakers, in 2019. He has since been part of the Phoenix Suns’ coaching staff and has attributed his success since then to the priceless lessons he gained during his stint with the Knicks.<\/p>\n

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Related: \u201cWe\u2019re playing in Africa in the middle of summer in the Finals\u201d – David Fizdale believes the Spurs sabotaged the AC in the 2014 Finals<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Mar 4, 2026, where it first appeared in the Latest News<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the hardest jobs in the NBA is undoubtedly being the\u00a0New York Knicks’\u00a0head coach. Madison Square Garden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[158004,16898,6345,1055,15050,7741,8173,355,2005,361,6415,99],"class_list":["post-504432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-david-fizdale","tag-head-coach","tag-kristaps-porzingis","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-madison-square-garden","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-miami-heat","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}