Coming off of a 32-50 season and a third straight spring without playoff basketball, the New York Knicks will be in the market for a new coach this offseason.
According to Knicks beat writer Steve Popper, team president Phil Jackson is not interested in going with a coach he doesn’t know on a personal level:
Phil said he is only interested in coaches he knows – is in sympatico with.
— Steve Popper (@StevePopper) April 14, 2016
Jackson also said that Kurt Rambis, who finished the season as the Knicks interim coach and went 9-19, will be given an interview for the full-time head coaching job.
It’s hard to tell what draws Jackson to Rambis more, the 9-19 record this season or his career 65-164Â mark.
None of this can be welcome news for the Knicks or their fans. It’s undeniable that New York hasn’t shown significant improvement under Jackson’s watch. A credible argument could even be made that it’s precisely because he hasn’t been willing to go outside of his comfort zone with his coaching hires.
There’s a potentially strong crop of available head coaches this year that could include Mark Jackson, Jeff Van Gundy, Tom Thibodeau and Luke Walton, among many others.
The only one of those coaches that Jackson “knows” is Walton, who played for Jackson for most of his career.
But if the Golden State Warriors are any indicator, even Walton would be more likely to run a system closer to what Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs run, as opposed to what Jackson ran with the Lakers and Chicago Bulls.
If Phil Jackson really only wants to go with coaches that he knows and is familiar with, then chances are good that he’ll get a coach that was effective for him as Derek Fisher and Kurt Rambis were, which would mean more irrelevant Knicks teams for the foreseeable future.
If the “definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” Phil might be certifiably insane.