Knicks still in coaching limbo while other teams make improvements
Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd, left, questions a call to referee Derek Richardson during the first half of an NBA game against the Charlotte Hornets in Dallas on Feb. 27. Credit: AP/LM Otero
Champagne was flowing Sunday night — at least once the barely-legal-to-drink Oklahoma City Thunder players figured out how to open the bottles. And while the Thunder had plenty to celebrate, winning the first title since the franchise relocated from Seattle, they weren’t the only ones toasting victories.
The Houston Rockets had swung a deal to obtain Kevin Durant for a bargain price, pushing their roster into a win-now mode. They, and others, were still holding chips in hopes that Giannis Antetokounmpo might become available in a deal. And lottery teams were readying for Wednesday’s NBA Draft.
And for the Knicks and their fans, there is silence.
They fired the coach, Tom Thibodeau, who brought them to the precipice of where the celebrations were taking hold in Oklahoma City, earning a trip to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in a quarter-century. They are without a first-round pick in Wednesday’s draft. And the years of stockpiling assets for the right deal were sent out last summer, making the possibility of a deal to level up the roster more challenging than any on-court obstacle.
All of those issues are related. How do you make a pick or pursue a trade when you don’t know who the coach is or what the system will be? That is unless the coach is just a puppet with a front office pulling the strings.
For all of the blame game being played, one criticism no one can make of Thibodeau is that he didn’t do it his way. And speaking of blame, team president Leon Rose certainly knew he was getting a determined free thinker when he made the hiring of Thibodeau his first move after taking over five years ago.
Even Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan gave free rein to Phil Jackson and then Rose. So if there are voices in the organization who want a coach who will do it the way they want, they’ve got to have a louder voice than the two figures at the top. And maybe they do and that might not be a good thing.
The Knicks have gone through the process of a coaching search. It has been a slow process, citing due diligence, which made sense in 2020 when they conducted 13 interviews while knowing all along that Thibodeau was the first choice. Now, conducting a slow, methodical search is not nearly as easy to understand when it follows ousting the coach who brought the Knicks this close to a title.
If all along it is a process to ensure that the first instinct is correct, as they did with Thibodeau, that will all be forgotten. Multiple sources have indicated throughout the process that the preferred choice was — and is — Jason Kidd. Kidd remains under contract to the Dallas Mavericks with one rejection already to the Knicks’ efforts to speak with him.
But the first push aside might not be the last and there are still many who believe the Knicks will try again. Kidd has not been approached about an extension or raise in Dallas and his staff has begun to get ripped away. His lead assistant, Sean Sweeney, is heading to San Antonio, where he will be associate head coach after not being offered an extension by the Mavs and rebuffing advances by the Knicks to meet about the head coaching vacancy. Assistant coach Jared Dudley is leaving, too. Dudley is expected to join the Cleveland staff when his contract runs out this week. Developmental coach God Shammgod is also believed to be departing.
The Dallas machinations are particularly interesting because the Knicks’ efforts to pursue Sweeney might indicate the fading belief that they can land Kidd. But that an assistant passed up the chance at a coveted first head coaching job with a potential championship contender also shows the questions about how business is being conducted in Dallas.
The Knicks aren’t a rebuilding project now as they were when Thibodeau arrived. They fell just short of reaching the NBA Finals this season and whoever takes over already was facing massive expectations because the Eastern Conference finals weren’t enough to protect the last coach. And the expectations are rising even in chaos with Achilles injuries spoiling hopes next season for Boston (Jayson Tatum), Indiana (Tyrese Haliburton) and Milwaukee (Damian Lillard).
Champagne is within the Knicks’ reach. But these next decisions will determine how close they get. Will this chance be the one that finally ends the half century of frustration or have they begun backsliding one more time?
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
