About three months ago, New York Knicks president Phil Jackson sat in front of a group of fans at Madison Square Garden and laid out some of his plans for the future.

He talked about a lot that night.

Some of it was a sales pitch to make sure people would continue to spend money on the Knicks. The team, after all, was in the final stages of the worst season in franchise history.

But Jackson talked also candidly about how he’d approach free agency.

One thing made clear that night: Jackson didn’t intend to pursue a star player just to make a splash.

“We won’t chase some cockamamie dream,” is how he put it.

As it turned out, Jackson didn’t even get the chance to chase a star player. The biggest names on the market didn’t seriously consider the Knicks as a destination.

Marc Gasol and the Memphis Grizzlies are closing in a deal that will keep him in Memphis. LaMarcus Aldridge picked the San Antonio Spurs (after canceling a scheduled meeting with the Knicks) and DeAndre Jordan decided to sign with the Dallas Mavericks.

Greg Monroe, the one big-name player who even considered signing with the Knicks, ended up choosing the Milwaukee Bucks over New York.

That’s right: Milwaukee -- the 35th-largest television market in the country -- won out over Jackson’s 11 rings and the lure of the Big Apple.

This isn’t to say that Jackson’s offseason has been a failure so far. By and large, he landed quality players (Robin Lopez, Arron Afflalo, Kyle O’Quinn) on reasonable contracts who should help the team take a step forward from the 17-win disaster during the 2014-15 season.

But if anything can be gleaned after the first few days of free agency, it’s this: The lure of playing in New York -- or in any other big market -- is no longer enough to attract elite talent, so Jackson now needs to build a team that can.

That’s the one way he can hope to sell free agents in the summer of 2016 or 2017.

Other factors that used to give big markets like New York an advantage in free agency no longer exist.

Money generally doesn’t tip the scales in favor of teams like the Knicks anymore. The CBA has evened the financial playing field for free agents.

Marketing is no longer an advantage for big cities like New York. Ask Kevin Durant if he needs to be in a big market to gain lucrative marketing opportunities. And Jackson’s rings didn't have much of an allure to the top free agents.

Of course, Jackson’s moves this summer may make the Knicks a better attraction for free agents in the near future. If Lopez and Afflalo can put together strong seasons and rookie Kristaps Porzingis develops quicker than most project, maybe free agents look at the Knicks in a different light in the years to come.

But there are some Knicks fans out there who don’t want to wait around.

They view this summer as a letdown because Jackson couldn’t land a big star. And this is understandable, to a degree.

If you told a Knicks fan back in March 2014, on the day Jackson took over, that the team would win 17 games in 2014-15 and their big offseason acquisitions would be Lopez and Afflalo, you’d probably be sent to Bellevue.

But here we are.

The Knicks are now clearly rebuilding and Jackson seems to be taking a long-term approach to it. Nothing wrong with that.

You have to wonder, though, how all of this fits with the career arc of Carmelo Anthony. Anthony, who signed a five-year, $124 million deal with Jackson and the Knicks last summer, viewed the 2015 offseason and the 2015-16 season as a big opportunity for both he and the Zen Master.

“This next season, for me and for the organization and for Phil, this is where we earn our money,” Anthony said back in April.

Anthony, 31, wants badly to win a title. And it doesn’t seem like the Knicks will be in position to do so for at least the next two seasons. Just how this sits with Anthony is anyone’s guess. He has a no-trade clause in his contract and there has been plenty of talk among media and fans about him exercising it in the coming season.

All of that talk is premature at this point. Maybe Melo is on board with what Jackson did this summer, maybe he isn’t.

What we do know is that the elite free agents in the summer of 2015 weren't swayed by the rings on Phil Jackson’s fingers. It turns out that they’d rather have an opportunity to win one themselves.