In any sport, if a general manager or owner is going to fire a successful head coach, they should have the next candidate lined up and ready. Or, at the very least, have a clear succession plan.
That does not appear to be the case in New York after they fired Tom Thibodeau, according to NBA insider Marc Stein, who wrote, “all initial indications … suggested that the Knicks do not have a locked-in succession plan at head coach.”
While several coaches are being speculated about — Michael Malone (some Knicks insiders say that’s not happening), Jay Wright, Taylor Jenkins, Johnnie Bryant — Stien dropped this wild rumor:
“Two head coaches who are not currently available but said to interest the Knicks, according to league sources, are Dallas’ Jason Kidd and Houston’s Ime Udoka.”
That’s not happening. Ignoring the question of whether either of them would want to leave promising younger teams — in Kidd’s case the chance to coach No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg — to work for James Dolan, there is no chance Houston or Dallas would give New York permission to talk to their coaches.
Which brings us back to the initial issue: if you’re going to fire a successful coach like Thibodeau, you have to have a succession plan in place, and that appears not to be the case in New York.
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