The New York Knicks are in the market for a new head coach. The team fired David Fizdale on Friday afternoon after less than a year and a half at the helm, a move that didn’t come as a particularly huge surprise considering the rumblings around the franchise for much of the 2019-20 season.
Figuring out who will be the next coach is tough — New York is a hard job, as evidenced by their quick hook whenever a coach isn’t getting the job done. But someone needs to take the job from interim head coach Mike Miller, and thanks to BetOnline, we know the names that Las Vegas views as the most likely to take over.
The top-2 candidates for the gig are Mark Jackson (5/1) and Kenny Smith (6/1), both of whom are New York natives and, in Jackson’s case, a former Knick. The pair are currently locked into TV gigs, but Jackson was formerly the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, while Smith has been tied to a few jobs over the years. Beyond them, former San Antonio Spurs assistant and current Olimpia Milano coach Ettore Messina (7/1), Charlotte Hornets coach James Borrego (9/1), and Michigan coach Juwan Howard (9/1) round out the top-5.
Here’s the full list of names to whom Vegas gave odds.
Knicks Head Coach 2020-21 Season Game 1
Mark Jackson 5/1
Kenny Smith 6/1
Ettore Messina 7/1
James Borrego 9/1
Juwan Howard 9/1
Jeff Van Gundy 10/1
Jay Larranaga 14/1
Jerry Stackhouse 14/1
Mike Woodson 14/1
Monty Williams 14/1
David Blatt 16/1
Jay Wright 18/1
Keith Smart 18/1
Patrick Ewing 22/1
Sam Mitchell 22/1
Stan Van Gundy 28/1
Tyronn Lue 28/1
Adrian Griffin 33/1
Brian Shaw 33/1
Derek Fisher 33/1
Jason Kidd 33/1
Sam Cassell 33/1
Becky Hammon 50/1
John Calipari 50/1
Kaleb Canales 50/1
Rick Pitino 50/1
Maurice Cheeks 66/1
Byron Scott 80/1
Mike Brown 80/1
Mike Krzyzewski 80/1
Pat Riley 100/1
Phil Jackson 100/1
Charles Oakley 250/1
It’s a gigantic list, albeit one that doesn’t include someone who really wants the Knicks job, Metta World Peace. Still, it’s quite the list of candidates, even if a collection of them are assuredly not going to happen — you, loyal reader, probably have as good of a chance of taking over the team as Phil Jackson. Then again, it is the Knicks, and if we know one thing about them, it’s that we can’t ever really count anything out.
