New York Knicks head coach Jeff Hornacek has only 17 more games to make a good case on why this new front office regime should keep him at the helm of this team by next season.

Despite the loss of Kristaps Porzingis to an ACL tear and all the new changes in the rotation, the Knicks stand at 24-41 this season — showing promise early, but falling precipitously shortly after, now losers of 13 of their last 14 games.

Center Enes Kanter reacted to the rumors of a potential sack of his coach.

“He’s good man,” Kanter said, according to Chris Iseman of NorthJersey.com. “Obviously I’ve known him since my first season in the NBA. He helped me a lot grow as a person, as a player on and off the court. And I think he’s done an amazing job. Obviously it’s been a tough year for us with injuries and everything. But he’s not just settling. He’s not saying, okay, we’re on vacation. He’s still going out there and he wants us to fight every game, every night. And try to win games.”

Kanter has been able to shine as the starting center of this team, but he is one of the very few bright spots of this season, with a confusing direction at the point guard position of a still-green Frank Ntilikina and a woeful shooting Emmanuel Mudiay at the reins.

“Everybody wants to win,” Hornacek said. “But in the NBA, it’s not easy to win. We got to a good start with those guys and then the injury, were we deep enough with top guys to overcome that? Obviously we weren’t able to. But that doesn’t mean that we haven’t improved. Guys are getting better, trying to improve their competitiveness.”