Knicks

Spo is the one coach who is an inarguable upgrade from Thibs.

Hiring a college coach would be an enormous mistake.

I like Malone but there is no good argument that he is an upgrade from Thibs.

And I love the "hit his ceiling" argument. Hit his ceiling with what, the roster the front office put together by changing 40% of the starting lineup at the beginning of this season, supplementing with a one-deep bench, and giving up essentially all of their future draft capital that might have produced useful bench players?

If folks don't see this more as a front office failure than a coaching failure then we are watching different games. This team consistently produced out of timeouts, consistently won close games, and consistently came back from deficits that a lot of teams would have quit on. The lineup and rotations got changed against Indy when they needed to after a starting unit that was consistently poor all season finally got exposed in THE CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP round where they haven't been in 25 years, and if it were not for a Game 1 loss because Aaron Nesmith went NBA-Jam "he's on fire!" and Halliburton got a lucky bounce then on Thursday it would be them instead of Indy with the chance to lose to OKC in 5 games.

IMHO Thibs was an enormous factor in how this team got as far as it did, and in the end his undoing was the roster construction which is not on him.

EDIT: And what will happen next year is that Towns will be gone and if the team wins folks will say "yeah, it's because Thibs hit his ceiling and X took them farther" as opposed to saying "gee it's a shame that they saddled Thibs with the worst defensive big in the league and he didn't have this roster instead."
I still stand by the “hit the ceiling” argument, since I have been using it often (along with the idea that this roster construction does not fit Thibs’ style).

Of course this can backfire, but it can also work out. I like Rose more than I like Thibs, so I am willing to see this play out.
 
Pitino throwing out the first pitch at the stadium tomorrow night. Announce him as Knicks coach and he runs out like Billy at old timers day
Until the Knicks officially hire a coach, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility, but I don't think the Knicks want to go the college route.

Wouldn't mind if they plucked Dan Hurley out of the Big East, though. I believe the Knicks are one of the few jobs he'd consider leaving UCONN for. But again, I don't think the Knicks want a college coach.
 
Johnnie Bryant, Cavs assistant coach this year and was Knicks asst coach under Thibs from 20-24. He is supposedly the leader for the Suns job.



Thanks Chris. Have to say none of these guys, with the possible exception of Malone, make me very optimistic.

 
Until the Knicks officially hire a coach, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility, but I don't think the Knicks want to go the college route.

Wouldn't mind if they plucked Dan Hurley out of the Big East, though. I believe the Knicks are one of the few jobs he'd consider leaving UCONN for. But again, I don't think the Knicks want a college coach.
As a Knicks fan, the I give that suggestion a big thumbs down!
 
I still stand by the “hit the ceiling” argument, since I have been using it often (along with the idea that this roster construction does not fit Thibs’ style).

Of course this can backfire, but it can also work out. I like Rose more than I like Thibs, so I am willing to see this play out.
Reasonable position although I'm probably more of a Thibs fan than you and hate the thought of Hurley even being considered for the job.
 

Never say never but Jay Wright is not very motivated by money, and the chances of failure are high that would ding his rep as an all time great coach. I'd root for it to happen since I interacted with Wright several times over the years and he is the real deal as a person. But I've already been there done that with hiring a guy I admire as a HC (CM).

Funny though, at some point in my fantasy Jay returns to college bball.
 
I think Knicks hire their main target quickly.This has a feel that work behind the scenes has taken place before the Thibs news.
You are probably right. I just wonder if Jeff Van Gundy, who has been successful as an assistant for the Clippers, and our own Mark Jackson aren't worth an interview.
 
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