The New York Knicks have attempted to interview numerous coaches around the NBA, but have been denied firmly by multiple teams.
There wasn’t much the Knicks could do, as this isn’t college basketball, and teams aren’t required to allow other teams to interview their head coaches.
The Knicks have some interviews lined up over the next few days, with the expectation that they’ll land a head coach sometime in the near future.
However, a surprise name was linked to them on Saturday, when Jeremy Brener of Sports Illustrated suggested that the Knicks could hire former head coach Jeff Van Gundy.
Van Gundy was the Knicks’ head coach from 1996 to 2001, leading the team to a decent position throughout parts of his tenure with the organization.
The Knicks won 57 games in the 1996-97 season and advanced to the NBA Finals during the 1998-99 campaign.
However, he hasn’t coached in an NBA game as a head coach since the 2006-07 season, serving as an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Clippers during the 2024-25 season.
“With the Knicks job open after the firing of Tom Thibodeau, perhaps Van Gundy could take over for him.
“It would surely be a splashy hire, which the Knicks might be looking for, and it’s someone who knows how to handle the media and pressure that the job comes with,” Brener wrote.
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Throughout his career, Van Gundy won 430 games, losing 318 of them.
He finished in the top five in the Coach of the Year voting in 2006-07, but doesn’t have much head coaching experience since.
If the Knicks want to make the right hire, it’s likely a better option to go with somebody who has been in the league as a head coach in recent years.
