Knicks News and Rumor Roundup

With plenty of big names potentially on the block, the rumor mill will churn out plenty of gossip in the days and weeks ahead.

'Tis the season…

With plenty of big names potentially on the block, the rumor mill will churn out plenty of gossip in the days and weeks ahead. Thus, every so often this offseason, I'll round up the news making the rounds so you can get caught up in one swoop.

Today, let's start with the latest on the coaching front.

🏀 Word spread via multiple outlets late last week that the Knicks were planning to seek the Mavericks' permission to talk to head coach Jason Kidd about their head coaching vacancy. New York was "conducting active due diligence" on Kidd, according to ESPN's Shams Charania and Tim MacMahon, despite Kidd having two years remaining on the extension he signed during the Mavs' run to the Finals last spring.

However, in his latest Substack column published Saturday, Marc Stein reports that Dallas will likely deny the Knicks permission to speak with Kidd if a formal request is made. Stein notes that "well-placed observers" expect Mavs general manager Nico Harrison and team owner Patrick Dumont to decline New York overtures, similar to how Houston handled the situation when the Knicks were sniffing Ime Udoka.

🏀 Another coaching candidate we can cross off the big board is former Villanova head man Jay Wright. Per Seth Davis, Wright has "informed the Knicks that he is not interested in any coaching position and plans to remain retired."

In response, Josh Hart, who played under Wright at 'Nova, joked on Twitter, "Man Thank You. Stay retired!"

🏀 While most previous reporting indicated that Leon Rose was solely responsible for firing Tom Thibodeau, Vince Goodwill, a senior reporter for Yahoo Sports, published a piece over the weekend asserting that owner James Dolan "spearheaded the move."

Per Goodwill, "Dolan, whom sources said was never a huge Thibodeau fan through the years," took part in the team's exit meetings and "asked questions, while Rose took a secondary role."

Goodwill also reports that "a couple of players felt Thibodeau played the starters too many minutes and that they felt he had an inability to adjust, sources said. Another player stated that he didn't feel like he could play for Thibodeau if the coach returned next season."

Those are some strong words.

🏀 On a similar theme, over in Newsday, Steve Popper states that among last season's rotation players, Precious Achiuwa seems "most likely to be gone" as "there was a dissatisfaction with playing time under Thibodeau — and the coaching staff having equal dissatisfaction about the defense and consistency provided by Achiuwa," Popper reports.

Popper adds that among the Knicks' veteran free agents, Landry Shamet "probably has the best chance" to re-sign with New York.

🏀 Former Knick Theo Pinson went on record and chimed in on Thibodeau's firing via his To The Baha podcast.

"He is a good coach… but he is not a sustainable coach for star players, and not a sustainable coach for teams to get over that hump. At some point, they are going to hit a wall because he just doesn't adapt. And he's had so many opportunities to adapt. He tried to adapt in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, like (bleep bleep) what? Why now?"

🏀 There was some Suns news (which could indirectly impact New York) in Stein's latest Substack as well. He notes that Phoenix is unlikely to agree to a buyout with shooting guard Bradley Beal, who has two years and $111 million left on his current contract. The most the Suns can offer via a buyout of approximately $90 million, which would be an insane amount of money to swallow to watch Beal leave and play for another team.

Using the "stretch provision" on Beal is not an option because the salaries of waived and stretched players cannot exceed 15% of the salary cap.

Stein also notes that the Phoenix front office is expected to offer Devin Booker a maximum extension on July 6th (the earliest possible date) worth $150 million over two years.

Signs continue to point toward the Suns parting ways with Kevin Durant and trying to build around Booker.

Speaking of KD, Shams Charania reported during a TV appearance on Thursday that the Knicks made an offer for Durant at the trade deadline back in February. I'm currently working on a piece examining the pros and cons of a KD blockbuster, which will be posted tomorrow.

🏀 On the Giannis Antetokounmpo front, a slight shift seems to have taken place in Wisconsin, with indications that Milwaukee may be able to hold onto their homegrown superstar. Here's what Jake Fischer of The Stein Line recently said on a Bleacher Report livestream:

"Honestly, right now, I'd say the prevailing sentiment from rival teams that I'm speaking to — around the combine two weeks ago, two and a half weeks ago — there was no shortage of optimism, of hope, of excitement from other teams that they were going to be able to potentially make an offer to get Giannis Antetokounmpo into their franchise, into their building," Fischer said.

"But I'd say for now, for now, talking to people around the league, the assessment and the expectation is that they're going to believe it when they see it — that someone who has valued being the franchise face, that the central linchpin of the Bucks franchise, is going to want to play somewhere else."

Brian Lewis of The New York Post echoed similar sentiments last week, reporting that executives around the league are expressing less confidence that Giannis will demand to be dealt this summer. "He's not that guy (to cause trouble)," a source told Lewis. "He's going to complain, but he isn't going to actually burn it to the ground and be the bad guy to leave."

🏀 Interestingly, Fischer reported in his Substack over the weekend that the Celtics are "most definitely listening" to trade offers for Jrue Holiday. Boston would obviously prefer to hold onto their two-way star, but they are on pace to pay an astronomical tax bill if they are unable to get under the second apron. Holiday still has three years left on the four-year, $134.4 million extension he signed last year. It will be fascinating to see how the C's attempt to reshape their roster this summer.

🏀 Lastly, I thought I'd pass along this thought-provoking piece by Spencer Harrison, a professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD, which was posted in The Athletic as part of their desk covering "leadership, personal development and success through the lens of sports."

Harrison notes that he was surprised by how Tom Thibodeau responded to the comments by Mikal Bridges regarding the heavy minutes Thibs was playing the Knicks' starters.

If you remember, after a shootaround in mid-March, Bridges was asked a relatively innocuous question regarding Thibodeau's reputation as a coach who plays his starters heavy minutes. Surprisingly, Bridges was honest. "Sometimes not fun on the body," Bridges replied. "But you want that as a coach, but also talk to him a little bit, knowing that we've got a good enough team where our bench guys can come in and we don't need to play 48, 47 [minutes].

Mikal also intimated that he and the head coach had productive conversations about the situation.

However, when Thibs met with reporters the next day, Thibs attacked the line of questioning head-on, immediately disputing Bridges' claim that the player and the coach had never discussed the topic.

Here's what Harrison wrote in his column over the weekend:

"As someone who studies the cultures of businesses and organizations, I found Thibodeau's response telling. To me, it suggested a stubbornness and unwillingness to consider other options, as if the conversation wasn't even worth having. And it reminded me of leadership and organizational issues we see in the business world."

"We know that Thibodeau is really passionate about basketball and a really good defensive coach who has won doing things his way. But the question with him has always been: Can he be more flexible within his system? Can he use people with different skillsets in different ways?"

"If you're not willing to second-guess or expand your learning, to actually have the conversations to explore what other ideas are available, then it's hard to see your own blind spots. This might have been a key issue for the Knicks with Thibodeau."

Harrison wraps his post by pointing out the inherent risk in firing a proven winner like Thibs and offers some advice on how New York should proceed.

"This is the trick for all organizations going through this kind of change, including the Knicks: How do we leverage the value of the gritty, hard-working culture that Thibodeau built with a new coach who's going to want to implement new things?

"You want to make dead sure that the next person you hire is not a system leader but a learning leader. It's a coach who should say: "I want to learn from the players on what made this team successful, and then I'm going to focus on expanding and maximizing the toolkit."