ESPN’s Mark Jackson Favored To Be Next New York Knicks Head Coach

To no one’s surprise, the New York Knicks have fired another head coach. It feels like every couple of years, the Knicks are canning someone and starting a fresh rebuild.

This time, the victim was David Fizdale. The Knicks started the year 4-18, were riding an eight-game losing streak and weren’t showing signs of development. Mike Miller has taken over in the interim but he isn’t the long-term answer. That begs the question: who will the Knicks hire next? With the New York Knicks head coach odds, it’s Mark Jackson who is favored to be their next bench boss.

MARK JACKSON
ODDS: +500

The Knicks are a terribly-run franchise. It is important to remember that they wanted Steve Kerr to coach their team several years ago but Kerr, being an intelligent person, ignored the Knicks and instead chose the Golden State Warriors. The rest is history. Kerr will be a Hall of Fame head coach with at least three NBA titles and the distinction of having reached five straight NBA Finals. The Knicks are still reeling, spending year after year at the bottom of the NBA. They have won one playoff series since the year 2000 and have not made the playoffs since 2013. For these and other related reasons, no truly good coach wants to go to the Knicks. Rick Carlisle or Erik Spoelstra or Mike Budenholzer are all happy and comfortable where they are.

This is why Mark Jackson makes sense as the best candidate from a betting standpoint. He isn’t a terrible coach; he actually turned the Warriors around before Kerr took over. Jackson led them to back-to-back winning seasons and a playoff berth before getting canned. We don’t know if he’s a great coach, but his work with the Warriors before Kerr took over suggests that he might be able to make some progress.

Given that Jackson is a New Yorker who played college ball at St. John’s in Madison Square Garden, the longtime TV analyst might want to pursue this job and the Knicks might be desperate enough to think he is the right choice as well.

DAVID BLATT
ODDS: +1600

Blatt is another coach who might actually want to pursue the Knicks’ job. That is such a key dimension of this particular drama: the coach has to want to come to New York. Candidates who would legitimately be interested are the ones who should be seen as the better choices.

Blatt was fired by the Cavs – essentially, fired by LeBron James (though not technically) – because Cleveland wasn’t dominating the NBA midway through the 2015-16 season. This happened despite the fact that Cleveland had a 30-11 record and had reached the NBA Finals the season prior, losing in six tough games to the Warriors with Kyrie Irving injured for most of the series. When a coach is fired under unusual circumstances, it creates a burning desire to prove the critics wrong. Blatt would probably love the chance to see if he can turn around the Knicks. He therefore can’t be written off here.

KEITH SMART
ODDS: +1800

The NBA assistant, who was an interim coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers for half a season and a fill-in coach in Sacramento with the Kings, has also coached the Golden State Warriors (before Mark Jackson coached them earlier this decade). He is well-traveled and owns a lot of experience. If Jackson or Blatt turn down the job, or if the Knicks don’t land other names higher on the list of favorites, Smart would certainly make sense. He doesn’t have a coaching legacy to defend, unlike the more accomplished head coaches in the NBA. It wouldn’t damage his reputation if he came to New York. The issue is that he’s not a very sexy name and the Knicks usually like to make a splash.

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