NEW YORK – As a young NBA coach, the fastest path to losing a locker room comes this way: Behave like a player. To fly to California and visit a girlfriend in the middle of the New York Knicks' training camp – engaging Matt Barnes in a Tom-and-Jerry tussle-and-chase – cost Derek Fisher dearly. Fisher lost the moral high ground inside Madison Square Garden, lost a measure of gravitas as a leader of men.

The embarrassment of his unfilmed "Real Housewives" episode didn't cost Fisher his job as Knicks coach, but it did start him on a slippery slope toward his firing on Monday. That October weekend odyssey was Fisher's choice, and the blame for it all – including the failure to return to New York in time to conduct a Knicks practice – belongs to him.

Still, sometimes culture influences behavior inside organizations. Think Fisher never saw Phil Jackson bolting town to see Jeanie Buss? As one member of the Knicks organization wondered, "Where would [Fisher] get the idea that it was OK to fly to California on an off day to see your girlfriend?"

For better and worse, yes, Jackson's lifestyle and sensibilities set the tone with the Knicks. Fisher lost players with his discombobulated rotations and revolving roles. Inside the locker room, the Knicks had come to struggle with understanding how they fit into this team, league sources said. Above Fisher, Jackson worried about how that impacted the development of the roster. What's more, there were times Jackson felt Fisher had strayed too far from the triangle offense, still a sacred part of the Knicks president's program.

View photos Phil Jackson hired Derek Fisher after Steve Kerr first rejected an offer from the Knicks. (NBAE/Getty Images) More

For Fisher, there was no advantage to longtime Jackson disciples Kurt Rambis and Jim Cleamons getting jammed onto his coaching staff 18 months ago. The Knicks have the resources to hire elite coaches, and Jackson pursues the familiar, the comfortable. His coaching tree is too small, too unaccomplished to cling so tightly to it. Rambis and Brian Shaw have no business as candidates to coach the Knicks – but there's a world of Jackson sycophants that delivers the idea credibility.

Everyone can forget about Tom Thibodeau's candidacy, because Jackson would never cede control – never mind to someone who sees basketball so diametrically different than him. Anyway, Jackson has never hid his disdain for the Jeff Van Gundy coaching tree; in truth, most everyone else's coaching trees.

In a lot of ways, Jackson exists in a parallel universe to the NBA. He hires coaches out of his world, personnel scouts out of his world. The idea of Rambis, Shaw or Cleamons as long-term Fisher replacements is embarrassing. Jackson isn't using the Knicks' vast resources to lure the best player personnel staffs and coaches to the Knicks, just likeminded people, just his guys. Nevertheless, he probably never promised owner James Dolan a different vision. Every executive has the right to execute his vision, but this is far too narrow, too exclusive.

There are two kinds of employees with the Knicks: Jackson's guys and Dolan's guys. Jackson tried to move out some of Dolan's people, but never got his way. Within both groups, there are some real, smart, talented people. Jackson has made solid personnel decisions in free agency, and wisely kept the No. 4 pick in the 2015 draft to select Kristaps Porzingis. Still, the coach, the system, will be important in free-agent recruiting, because most believe Jackson is a short-timer on the job.

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