Kendrick Perkins reacts to David Fizdale being fired by the Knicks. (0:38)

Perkins: Fizdale 'was set up for failure from the jump' (0:38)

Editor's note: This story has been updated after David Fizdale's firing on Dec. 6.

Is there reason for optimism for the New York Knicks after a rough start that led to another coaching change?

According to a report on Friday from ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, the Knicks fired their head coach, David Fizdale, after the team's eighth straight loss. The team has also dismissed assistant Keith Smart.

Knicks president Steve Mills started to lay the groundwork for replacing Fizdale before an unusual postgame news conference last month with general manager Scott Perry in which Mills said, "The team is not performing to the level that we anticipated or we expected to perform at."

To the outside world, those expectations were overly hopeful after a summer in which New York used its treasure trove of cap space to sign lower-tier free agents to contracts with limited guarantees beyond this season.

What can the Knicks reasonably hope to achieve going forward? Let's take a look.