Phil Jackson has Knicks perfectly positioned heading into NBA draft, free agency

Phil Jackson surveyed the group of reporters gathered at the Knicks practice facility Tuesday and smiled, knowing that what information he could provide was limited, and not necessarily in his team's best interest to share ahead of Thursday's draft.

"I'm here to speak about nothing I can speak about," Jackson said. "It's all unspeakable things. But I'm willing to listen to questions you might have."

Fortunately for Knicks fans, who have waited the better part of 14 months since that March 2014 day when Jackson was introduced as president of the Knicks to find out what a Phil Jackson team looks like, the suspense is almost over.

As Jackson has rightly asserted, his hands were tied by the mistaken contracts and trades of the pre-Phil era since he took over the position last March. But the Knicks, thanks in part to patiently waiting out some contracts — Andrea Bargnani, for instance — and dealing away many others, enter the draft and free agency period with a top pick and ample cap space to make a 17-win team into one that's at least competitive.

It's an opportunity that will likely define the Jackson Era in New York, now more than a year into a five-year contract he's made clear he considers his final one. The Knicks don't have a first-round pick next year, even if they planned to finish as poorly as they did in 2014-15. And it is unlikely they'll use their cap space on one-year deals for the players they desperately need to add around Carmelo Anthony, whose age and recent injury history makes him a piece to build around now, not a few years from now.

"We want to build a team," Jackson said about this defining moment. "And then we'll move forward next year to build an even better team. So, at the present time, it's important. It's been a long time since the New York Knicks have had that opportunity."

Still, the precise direction the Knicks will take to build around the five players they have under contract, with only Anthony considered a true building block, remains frustratingly elusive for a team that is waiting on more picks to select on Thursday than expected.

Had the Knicks picked second as their record warranted, coming away with whichever big man the Timberwolves didn't select between Karl-Anthony Towns and Jahlil Okafor would have been an easy path for them. But at fourth overall, with multiple needs, Jackson acknowledged that there are various timelines in play for the team to pursue, Anthony or no.

"Let's use three different tracks," Jackson said. "Let's get that middle rail in there, to get the subway system covered. Yes, and yes, and perhaps even another way to go. There's more ways than one to skin this cat."

Jackson clearly means the Knicks can add a very young but talented player in the draft with the hope that he develops in time to help Anthony, but could be centerpiece of the post-Anthony Knicks. Alternatively, experience and the ability to plug a player into his lineup sooner would benefit the Anthony Knicks more, though at the expense, potentially, of a game-changing talent.

One thing Jackson made clear was that he plans to build his plan around Anthony, the man signed to a max deal with four years remaining on it. He has described Anthony as a small forward and power forward at various times, reiterating that which center he can bring in will help dictate his star's usage. But he also said he'd prefer to play Anthony at power forward, next to a center who can defend and rebound.

"A defensive-type center who can cover a lot of ground, rebound out of position, it allows more liberty for a coach to move a player around, allow players of all sizes to play on the floor, or go one big, four smalls. We have great hopes that we can find someone out there who has that ability. The draft has a couple guys with that capability, and free agency does, too."

And then there's the most win-now option in the bunch, which involves the Knicks trading the pick for veteran help. Jackson did not dismiss this possibility, though he described his team as listeners rather than solicitors of such deals.

"A short percentage, a small percentage, a fine percentage," Jackson said of that possibility. "How much do you pay in taxes? About that percentage."

Still, who can be sure? Even Jackson acknowledged that the information disseminated by teams in the days before the draft is necessarily self-serving and often at odds with reality.

"I don't know," Jackson said of how he and the Knicks separate real from fiction. "We have to evaluate why Philadelphia came out and said that [Joel] Embiid's progress [recovering from foot surgery] had changed. I don't know whether that was important information that had to come out or that was just a smokescreen. That's something like if I was saying Carmelo missed a couple days of workouts. So you have to take that into consideration ... we're just trying to get information that makes sense."

For Knicks fans who have been waiting for that information, to make sense of just what Phil Jackson wants: that knowledge is almost here. In fact, what moves come next will be indisputable, and tell the tale of the Phil Jackson Knicks for years to come.