Mar 19, 2014; New York, NY, USA; New York Knicks new president Phil Jackson sits in the stands during the first quarter of a game against the Indiana Pacers at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

You won’t find Phil Jackson’s latest signing listed in the league transaction wire, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be the most significant addition to the Knicks in years.

Early this week Ian Begley reported that Phil has brought on a mindfulness trainer to help the team improve their mental strength. Trust me, you aren’t alone if you aren’t sure what this means for the Knicks. Mindfulness is a topic that has been getting a lot of attention these past few years in spiritual, self-improvement, and motivation themed circles (Amazon has over 9,000 books listed under the genre of Mindfulness alone!); but it’s a concept that’s also finding its way into sports. Some may scoff at this and disregard it as some kind of frivolous parlor trick by the “Zen Master” to conjure up positive vibes, but it’s truly an area the Knicks can benefit from.

One of the Knicks greatest unquantifiable flaws that never show up in box scores and team statistics is their collective mental weakness. Recall for a moment last season’s constant blown leads that occurred seemingly every time their opponent made a run. You remember the script right? Here’s a refresher: Knicks take a double-digit lead late into the game, make a boneheaded play, other team scores, on next possession Knick player makes turnover and yells at ref for non-call while crowd starts to erupt, other team then scores easily on a fast break while said Knicks player is still arguing with ref; rinse repeat and before you know it, a 10-plus lead disintegrated into a bad loss where the entire team is pointing fingers and looks as if it just got rolled over by a freight train in the locker room; and…scene.

At its core, mindfulness is really about living in the present moment and not allowing previous occurrences (like taking a really bad shot for example) and possible future outcomes (fear of missing the next shot) cloud their heads and ultimately detract from the performance they are capable of like it did in the scenario above. It’s a meditative exercise that lends itself naturally to athletes that struggle containing the overwhelming stimuli that takes place during the course of a game. Fear of making another turnover, hearing jeers from the crowd, continuing a losing streak, bad season statistics, and being trashed on social media are just a few of the things that can prop up in a player’s mind during the game and contribute to poor play. In all those examples they are events that either already happened or are on the verge of happening. Mindfulness helps players learn to clear the negative thoughts that forms in their head during games and return themselves to the present moment and back to the task at hand: having fun & winning.

There is even some data that might help support this. Back in 2009, researchers from the French Institute of Sports published a study that compared the effects of a few months of mindfulness training in a group of young golfers to a control group that didn’t. The group that underwent the mindfulness training all enhanced their national ranking, while the control group only had 2 golfers that did. More recent research from Dr. Michael Duncan of Coventry University revealed findings that also showed how damaging cognitive anxieties could be to athletes. This would make it seem that while advances in medical treatment and statistical analytics continue to be a more important part of how teams evaluate players, mental training should also be something that progressive teams invest in.

If you still aren’t buying any of this, then take the word of a professional instead of mine. I asked Peak Performance Coach Art Rondeau, whom astute Knicks fans may remember working with Allan Houston back in 1999 and helping him reach career best marks, what he thought of the concept of mindfulness training. Art has worked with professional athletes in a variety of sports to break players out of slumps. Mindfulness training is a bit different than what Art does but in his words “is in the same church but different pews” so his thoughts here certainly hold weight.

How would you describe mindfulness training for athletes?

Art Rondeau: This is most likely done using techniques to help the players reduce the distractions around them (like fans cheering or booing) and to focus on “now” and not what happened minutes ago or days ago and not what will happen minutes from now or days from now. Being in “now” reduces stress and increases awareness on the task at hand, allowing the athlete to perform better.

But what exactly does mindfulness training consist of?

AR: Some techniques have a player focus on a word or phrase which they repeat, mentally, over and over. This can be a “mantra”, a word or phrase with religious or spiritual significance, or just a word like “one” which Dr. Herbert Benson recommended in his book The Relaxation Response and which takes any religious significance out of the word or phrase. Focusing on the word or phrase while the mind is trying to get the athlete to focus on the crowd or on the fact that he gets fouled a lot and they don’t always get called and that shows the ref doesn’t respect him, etc. etc., which would pull him out of “now” and into fear or anger or whatever, increases his ability to succeed at the task at hand.

So how can mindfulness training help in a rapid moving sport like basketball?

AR: Although they may have developed techniques to help the player while the game is at full speed, it seems to me that the best times for mindfulness’ effectiveness are before the game, when the athlete can put everything else out of his mind and focus on the game he’s about to play, and during stopped time, when the conscious mind may start “self talk” that could otherwise hurt the athlete’s performance. Using a free throw as an example, a shot which would normally take a fraction of a second to take from the time the athlete caught the ball to the time of release instead takes 10-20 seconds while everyone sets up and the player goes through his pre-shot ritual. Having practiced mindfulness techniques, the player will reduce or eliminate the impact of what he sees and hears and will focus on this free throw and not all the ones he’s missed before.

Should mindfulness training be taken more seriously when it comes to professional sports?

AR: Our culture is behind other cultures when it comes to recognizing the impact that the mind has on the body. We only tend to recognize it when something has gone “wrong” and a player “chokes” in certain circumstances. We don’t acknowledge how much impact the mind working “well” had when the athlete was at his best. Mindfulness is an important part of mind/body activities like martial arts, where we see amazing examples of old, small, superbly trained men and women defeat much larger and stronger opponents. Bringing the answer into the present situation, Phil Jackson has won 11 NBA Championships as a coach and he says that mindfulness played a part in winning them. That, alone, is reason enough for the Knicks players to make a serious effort to incorporate mindfulness into their athletic “toolboxes.”

Phil Jackson is commonly thought of as pedant to his triangle system, sometimes pejoratively, but as Art mentions, his 11 rings gives him the authority to determine whatever measures he wants to turn the Knicks back into a winning franchise. If mindfulness training is one of them, then I say we should embrace it. Last year a common refrain about the Knicks was that often times they were their own worst enemies, so in that vein I really do believe that a dedicated effort to improving their collective mental strength is something that will help them this year and the years after that.

Changing the culture of a team can require taking drastic and unorthodox methods to do so. As Knick fans know, not every fix comes down to cap space, trades, and free agents. Sometimes the most lasting and meaningful changes simply come from within, and that’s what Phil Jackson is already trying to teach to the Knicks.

Follow Richard Bertin on Twitter and check out his Knicks’ blog: “Starks Raving Mad”

Follow and Like Buckets Over Broadway on Twitter and Facebook.