Coaching Searches 101

Today we dive into the merits of hiring a retread vs giving a newbie their first shot by going through 20 head coach hires from the past 10 years and seeing how each one turned out.

Good morning! Before we get to today’s newsletter going through the recent history of good teams hiring new coaches, let’s quickly catch up on the news…

🏀 We got a spirited battle of “he said, he said” yesterday, with Shams listing the Knicks as a team that is interested in Kevin Durant, and the entire Knicks beat following up soon afterwards with swift denials about there being any interest. For more, check out Ian Begley’s comments on Durant to me yesterday.

🏀 Giannis is sure talking like a guy who plans on sticking around in Milwaukee.

🏀 After Shams officially reported late Tuesday night that the Knicks had been denied permission to talk to Ime Udoka and Chris Finch, Marc Stein reported yesterday that they were also denied permission to talk to Jason Kidd. Shams added Hawks’ coach Quin Snyder to the list of denials early yesterday evening, and then K.C. Johnson reported the Bulls denied permission for a Billy Donovan convo last night. The word from the Knicks (through the media, of course) is that this is all due diligence, which is of course fine. I just wish I knew about due diligence in high school, when my friends would constantly make fun of me for getting turned down by the fairer sex so often.

(And as an aside, because this is just due diligence and all, I’m assuming requests to speak to Erik Spoelstra, Ty Lue, Steve Kerr, Mark Daigneault, Kenny Atkinson and JJ Redick are coming and we just haven’t heard about them yet.)

🏀 On the lingering potential of Kidd as the next coach, Steve Popper said he’s “heard that despite this roadblock coming, some in the Knicks organization believe the first no is not the end.”

🏀 Both James Edwards III and Ian Begley (on the KFS Pod) noted Mike Brown and Taylor Jenkins as potential candidates, with Begley adding Mike Woodson as another name to watch. Not currently high on the list, however…

Coaching Searches 101

A former associate head coach, just shy of his 40th birthday, witnessed his team get to the brink of glory before taking over the lead job and going all the way himself.

This isn’t just a Knicks fever dream. It happened in real life. In fact, next season will be the 10-year anniversary of Tyronn Lue guiding the Cavaliers to their first ever NBA title and the first championship for the city of Cleveland in over 50 years.

Until yesterday, many fans viewed that 2016 Cavs title as a hopeful comp, with Johnnie Bryant in Lue’s place. But that was before we got multiple reports - including from Ian Begley on the KFS Pod - that Bryant isn’t currently a name at the top of New York’s list.

Might that change? Perhaps, although as Ian told me, the front office doesn’t seem to be targeting a first time coach for the vacancy. That makes sense when you look at the candidates they’ve already explored - Udoka, Finch and Kidd - and the names like Mike Brown and Taylor Jenkins that have now surfaced. Even former Knicks coach Mike Woodson, who Begley said to keep an eye on, falls into that category.

Is that a wise decision? That remains to be seen. Regarding the Lue/Bryant comp, it’s worth noting that there are more differences than meet the eye. While Cleveland did hire Lue as the associate head coach in the same offseason they hired David Blatt, Blatt only lasted a season and a half before he was fired. Cavs higher ups had already seen enough in Lue to trust that he was the right man for the job regardless of his inexperience. Five months later, he was raising a trophy.

In New York, the front office had four years to assess Bryant, and there were multiple instances, including midway through Thibodeau’s second season and then again early on in his third, where Leon Rose had the green light from James Dolan to move on from Thibs, as Begley confirmed with me yesterday. Bryant was ready and waiting on the sidelines, but the move was never made.

Maybe that’s not dispositive of anything, but it would still seem interesting that Bryant isn’t a top candidate after he spent so much time under their roof, even after several other top choices have gone by the wayside.

Which brings us back to that dreaded moniker: retread. Is this the way the Knicks should be going? Or should they, like the Cavs a decade ago, take the risk of hiring a first time coach? Let’s spend today going through the last 10 years of coaches taking over successful teams in the offseason to try and find the answer. Before we get there, two notes on the list:

• I didn’t include midseason hirings, because those situations are unique and don’t include a training camp to get acclimated. As a result, you won’t see Lue’s hiring listed below (or at least not his hiring in Cleveland).

• I only included examples of teams that fired their head coach after they finished the previous season with at least a .500 record and a playoff appearance. Anything else wouldn’t be analogous enough to matter.

With that, let’s start with first time coaches who found success despite a lack of head coaching experience:

Immediately Successful First Timers