From Shams:
The New York Knicks are expected to hire two-time NBA Coach of the Year winner Mike Brown as the franchise’s next head coach, sources told ESPN on Wednesday.
Knicks president Leon Rose underwent a thorough process since the firing of Tom Thibodeau a month ago. The Knicks requested permission to speak with five NBA head coaches and were denied, then interviewed several available coaches and went through multiround stages with candidates.
We knew it was coming, and now it is here.
The Dylan song is “Fourth Time Around” from Blonde on Blonde (his Beatles parody). Hopefully the fourth time is the charm!
59 replies on “ESPN.com: Sources: Knicks expected to hire Mike Brown as next head coach – Fourth Time Around”
Brown Brown!
Uninspiring, but also not terrifying. So…whatever. Upgraded to “cool” if we get Borrego as Associate Head Coach.
A confusing but essential distinction:
Sam Amick–rock solid NBA reporter for The Athletic
Sam Amico–clickbait merchant
Mike Brown is at least good enough that I think he could possibly get another gig after this one, which is more than I could say for David Fizdale, Derek Fisher, or Kurt Rambis. It is VERY easy to stop your career dead as an NBA coach, and Brown’s been competent enough to avoid that, which really does say something.
I remember thinking that Terry Porter was destined to be a good coach, and then he flamed out, and his career was over. Brown has avoided that, which say something.
I doubt there’s much of a trade market for Lebron .
Would LA consider buying him out? That make no sense for them unless they are just sick of him and want him out.
I think the Cavs would bring Lebron back- maybe something around Garland/Allen
From the last thread:
I’m actually kind of excited.
A lot of my favorite coaches were retreads: Joe Torre, Joe Girardi, Tom Coughlin, and yes, even Tom Thibodeau was one of my favorite coaches, believe it or not.
I will like it a lot more if we also get the Borrego hire.
Except lots of “Knicks For Clicks” articles related to LeBron, and duly ignore them.
Ayton headed to the Lakers according to Stein
I don’t mind the Pistons pivoting to Duncan Robinson after Malik “Hard 8” Beasley’s nonsense, but why pay him so much money?
Kennard should’ve been the Pistons target , much more than just a shooter
I hope Vegas sets the under/over high based on the decline of Boston and Indiana and the addition of Brown because right now I’d prefer betting the under on NY.
IMO Yabu and Clarkson are not going to move the team forward in any measurable way relative to Payne and Precious.
The westerm conference is so strong right now almost every game against a west coast team is going to be nightmare from hell.
IMO the east is better than everyone thinks.
The Hawks got better.
The Magic got better.
The Pistons are likely to be better.
The 76ers had the worst injury season I’ve ever seen other than the Grizzlies a couple of years back. They will be better.
Some of the recent tankers will still not be any good, but they’ll be better and cumulatively will win a couple of games from us.
We are counting on Brown to move the offense forward just to run in place next year and have a similar record.
Yabu is a much better basketball player than Precious
You like the Pistons moves? I think the Pistons overpaid for 2 mediocre players.
I would rather Beasley and Dennis Schroder
Ivey is the wildcard
People said this last season and the Pacers were the only team that OKC really struggled with. Even in the 7-game series against Denver, OKC had a +9 net rating. They stomped the Timberwolves on the Conference Finals.
Strat,
I feel like you do this every off season lol. You go around the teams in the east and give them the most positive outcome possible while diminishing the moves we made and players we have.
We have the most continuity in the east with probably the top 7 roster conference wise and we’ve shored up our bench.
We’re gonna fuck teams up this year.
I know we all like to be skeptical — it’s fun! But I like what the Knicks are doing. Clarkson is absolutely an upgrade over Payne on terms of what this team needs – a real consistent three level scoring threat, not just a jack up 3s and hope he’s hot today player. Yabs is a more complete offensive player than Precious, he can stretch the floor and hot threes from the top of the key opening up offensive versatility. Is Brown better than Thibs, I don’t know … But the front office wanted a more collaborative partner and a more open minded coach in terms of making adjustments and doing so before the conf finals down 0-2. Hopefully he can also help Bridges play more to his strengths and call some non -iso plays for him every now and then.
i thought indy replaced turner with ayton yesterday but now ayton is on the lakers
People just thought they would. I doubt they were ever that interested.
The Lakers are going to be defenseless next year
https://nypost.com/2025/07/02/sports/knicks-mike-brown-hiring-draws-mixed-reactions-from-fans/
Did they get some intel off this site..
Vogel is going to be Kidd’s new lead assistant in Dallas. Two paths not taken by us.
we (reportedly) did try the kidd path we were just unsuccessful at doing so
Ben Stiller likes the new coach. Good enough for me. (Re nypost)
Hopefully Borrega gets Head Coach Jr title and comes on over.
If Borrega wants to leave it would be pretty ugly for NO to say no but that’s not exactly a model franchise
i mean yeah ben stiller but we need to know what chalamet thinks
Clarkson has been a pretty horrendous 3pt shooter over his career. He sports a career .336 from 3. A year ago he shot .294 in 1600 minutes.
He also rarely got to the basket last season. Mikal Bridges, who we complain doesn’t take enough layups, shot within 3ft on 18% of his shots. Last season, Clarkson took 7% of his shots at the basket. Payne took 12% of his shots from there.
Clarkson isn’t a 3-level scorer, I’m hoping he remembers how to get to the basket and regain his status as a 2-level scorer. Otherwise, we’re getting a lot of Clarkson from the midrange.
I have absolutely no thoughts on Brown.
I thought Ayton to the Pacers was a done deal. Shocked he is on Lakers. Not sure he is a great player but we will find out.
he is better than jaxon hayes but still that does not make him a great player
i would have liked borrego to join up but at this point i do not think that he will (or can) i highly doubt that his presence would have netted us either a regular season or playoff win that we would not have gotten anyway interested to see who brown brings in for sure
kat brunson mitch hart og yabu clarkson mikal deuce kolek mccullar huk
try to always have two of mitch og deuce on the floor at a given time this configuration should really give og a chance to shine and show why he deserves to be our highest paid player
let’s do it
Can Mike Brown also manage the Yankees?
Some of you may have already read this last week, but this Macri newsletter is a good overview of Brown’s various coaching stops going back to the first time when he was the head guy in Cleveland.
https://knicksfilmschool.substack.com/p/quiet-night?r=15m8l&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true
Via NY Post
So Jenkins may not have wanted the job that much. He may be even smarter than I thought. 😉
Am I correct that none of the four Knicks players from last season who are free agents this year have been hired yet by anyone (Payne, Shamet, Achiuwa and Wright)?
I would say he’s certainly an upgrade in reputation but not much in basketball.
Yabu is a much better player on offense, but Precious is a better defender. The gap is not huge and since both are backups the gap + minutes is unlikely to add that much to the bottom line wins.
Based on what? Precious can do things. He also gets completely lost at times. His mistakes often lead to easy baskets. I will not miss him.
I try to normalize everything for injuries, development, draft and any moves teams have made.
I don’t think Yabu/Clarkson vs Precious/Payne moves the need much for us even though we needed more scoring on the bench and a PF that can shoot 3s. I see several other teams with more internal development opportunities, having drafted quality players or having made more significant additive moves. So while we may still be better than some of those teams, I think the gap closed. So I don’t see how we win more games next year unless Brown is a better coach than I’m giving him credit for. I think the west is just killer good.
As for Brown, I’m not unhappy with his hiring. He’s a competent coach who’s been competent everywhere he coached which is more than you can say for many coaches who get fired then hired somewhere else. They often don’t repeat the success of their old team with their new team. He probably will wear out his welcome in two years, but that just make him a normal NBA coach.
On the details side, it seems like he runs a more complicated offense than Thibs, but his players don’t always execute it This seems to be part of what got him fired from the Kings. The team had a run of losses that could have been avoided by better execution.
In the last two offseasons Precious has had one suitor in free agency- The Knicks
Strat, to be less flippant, the thing is that while Precious is in some ways a more impressive player, he is inconsistent, and it’s better to have a solid player who doesn’t make crucial mistakes at the wrong time. I’ll take the less spectacular dude who doesn’t get lost, thanks.
It has got to be an enormous challenge to be an effective coach to the third best player to ever play NBA basketball. Lucrative and challenging. I’m hoping he can get our guys to find a team within them. Anyone seen Mobland yet?
Precious is a decent one on one defender but a hapless team defender who processes the game WAY too slowly. Combine that with his lack of offensive game and that’s not a whole lot to hang your hat on.
Precious might not be in the NBA next season.
Time will tell about. Precious. I hope he finds a team. I just found this article that says the Warriors are interested.
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/new-york-knicks/news/former-knicks-big-man-linked-warriors-free-agency/282980da37b549cbb9098e7f
I’d be shocked if Precious is not in the NBA next year.
“It has got to be an enormous challenge to be an effective coach to the third best player to ever play NBA basketball. Lucrative and challenging.”
Mike Brown coached Kareem?
you are working too hard clarence…
Mobland is delicious, actors are all having waay too much fun…sexy not really smart…
jump over to Netflix though and Dept. Q delivers both…it’s this outstanding procedural with a scottish locale…
Murderbot on appletv is also a lot of fun…I’m reading book 5 (which is actually book 6 in the series chronological order) right now: Network Effect…
the show adds a real nice flavor by including scenes from some of the serials murderbot watches, so cool…unfortunately the casting for pinn-lee (fairly important character) didn’t go so well…
sounds like you need more tv time in your life 😊
no fear, i can be lazy enough for both of us and watch a bunch…
Jordan Clarkson’s exit interview…seems pretty chill.
Taylor Jenkins gets us!
Yabu isn’t much of a defender, but his ability to fake center is still really impressive and useful. A guy who can play the 4/5 and hit the three at a good rate is very useful.
taylor jenkins “gets” the pacers? huh? taylor jenkins had no dealings with the pacers on anything
our best 3 point shooters by percentage will be kat jalen yabu og deuce and clarkson in that order
We could have had God Shammgod as an assistant, and we blew it!
Here’s a Jordan Clarkson mix from 2021-22, when he was 29. He was good enough to be 4th in 6MoY voting, and was worth 8 figures. The question is: how much has he lost now that he is 33? Well, he only had 3 dunks last year, but had 13 the year before, so inconclusive, and he never was much of a volume dunker anyway. On a positive note, he’s shot the corner 3 well for the last three years, albeit on low volume, and he’s gotten to the line more lately. Maybe playing off the ball more and spotting up in the corners can help with his efficiency.
Doogie doesn’t get us!
Mike Brown
I like it
Truly impressed by his Sacramento Kings days
Expect to see exciting modern basketball
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