David Blatt was fired by the Cleveland Cavaliers in late January, and a few weeks later, Derek Fisher was fired by the New York Knicks. Blatt was permanently replaced by his former assistant, Tyronn Lue. Fisher on the other hand was temporarily replaced by the Knicks interim head coach, Kurt Rambis.
Now, in a recent report by ESPN’s Ian Begley, it appears that the Knicks President, Phil Jackson, is looking at Blatt as the teams next head coach.
One name that the Knicks are considering, according to league sources, is former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach David Blatt.
Jackson views Blatt favorably, according to sources. It’s also worth noting that Blatt played basketball with Knicks GM Steve Mills at Princeton.
Jackson obviously likes Blatt, and teammates are usually the best of friends, so it is safe to say that Mills also likes Blatt. Blatt did a good job with the Cavs, leading them to the Finals in his first season before being fired in January. In his time in Cleveland, he led the team to a record of 83-40.
Blatt did a fine job in Cleveland on paper, but his biggest problem was leadership. He did not seem to have control of his locker room, and fans even assumed that LeBron James was running the team, and Blatt was taking orders from him. Blatt’s camp even believes his firing was “1000% LeBron’s fault.” If Blatt takes over the Knicks, he would be coaching another superstar small forward in Carmelo Anthony. If Blatt has problems this time with his locker room, or with Anthony, he will have a good mentor to help him out: Phil Jackson.
Under the watch of Jackson, Blatt will have help with whatever problems come up as the Knick’s head coach. If hired, he should be fine. Jackson is one of the most well respected coaches in NBA history, and any player would likely listen to him. With Phil’s help, Blatt may be a fine coach for the Knicks.
Rambis may be the only thing in the way from Blatt being hired whenever Jackson makes a decision. As the current interim coach, Rambis seems ready to take the next step and be the teams full time head coach. He told ESPN’s Ian Begley:
“If we get the right pieces and continue to grow as a team and everything, we see this turning around real quick,” Rambis said Sunday. “The potential is there to turn it around really quick.”
Rambis sounds confident in the team, and he definitely seems to be ready to be the next head coach and lead this team for years to come. He also said:
“There’s nobody on this staff that feels comfortable not making the playoffs, we’re all in the same boat with that. We all know that we have to do things better and we have to get better in order to make that happen,” Rambis said. “It’s a process [to build a winning team] but I’m not thinking 10 years from now. We’re all assuming it’s going to happen a lot sooner rather than later.
“We’re looking at it from a standpoint of new management, new coaching staff, so last year was a year that I calculate as Year 0, just trying to clean things up and move forward. This is our first year of really trying to move forward and seeing what we have and the direction that we want to go and adding pieces. This is a natural process of what happens in the NBA.”
Jackson will likely wait until after the season is over to make a decision. These two guys seem to be the leading candidates at the moment, but the Knicks have yet to interview anybody yet. While they haven’t shown interest in anybody else, they have recently said they are not interested in one candidate: Tom Thibodeau.
