By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
The New York Knicks are looking to divert their focus in hiring Mike Brown as their new head coach after the dismissal of Tom Thibodeau following the squad’s exit in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Initially, New York had four first choices: Jason Kidd, Chris Finch, Billy Donovan, and Ime Udoka, but the coaches’ mother franchises all rejected the Knicks’ request to conduct negotiation as all of them are still under contract with Dallas, Minnesota, Chicago, and Houston, respectively.
Brown, on the other hand, is yet to find a new team after the Sacramento Kings fired him on December 28, 2024, with only 31 games into the NBA regular season.
Despite helping Sacramento end their 16-year NBA Playoff drought, Brown still faced an unexpected turn of events which resulted in his exit.
With a vast experience and knowledge after working side-by-side with the Golden State Warriors as their assistant coach from 2016-2022, Brown emulated the run-and-gun system that fitted well to their young core of De’Aaron Fox, Malik Monk, Domantas Sabonis, Kevin Huerter, and Keegan Murray.
Now that he is gone, replacing him as the new chief tactician of the Kings is his assistant coach Doug Christie, who steered them to a late ticket to the NBA Play-In Stage.
According to The Athletic’s Sam Amick, Brown will be included in New York’s final short list of next head coaching candidates.
The Knicks also put Taylor Jenkins on their radar, the former lead mentor of the Memphis Grizzlies who was surprisingly fired with only nine games remaining in the regular season.
Jenkins steered the Ja Morant-led Memphis squad to three NBA playoff trips, but received their worst post-season beat down without him on the sidelines in the first round of this playoffs against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
In his six-year career coaching the Grizzlies, Jenkins amassed a total of 250 wins and 214 losses, while Brown, when he was still with the Kings, tallied a 107-88 win-loss record.
