The New York Knicks are ramping up their search for a head coach to replace the fired David Fizdale on a full-time basis.
A report earlier on Wednesday noted that veteran head coach Tom Thibodeau sits atop a pretty small list of candidates.
Now comes this piece of information from SNY’s Ian Begley indicating that former Brooklyn Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson is also a candidate.
This would be a rather interesting scenario. Atkinson was fired by the Nets immediately ahead of the 2019-20 season being suspended back on March 11. Imagine the optics that would go with the Knicks hiring a castoff from within the Big Apple.
Despite those optics, it would not necessarily be a bad hire. Atkinson, 52, led the Nets from the bottom of the Eastern Conference in his first two seasons (48 combined wins) to a playoff spot last year. He had Brooklyn in playoff positioning when the 2019-20 campaign was suspended due to the global pandemic.
As noted in the report, interim Knicks head coach Mike Miller is also a candidate for the full-time job. Though, that seems to be more about the organization giving him an opportunity than anything else. It’s rather clear that New York’s new brass is looking to make a splash. Atkinson would represent that.
