NBA Betting: Steve Kerr Heavy Betting Favorite To Be Next Knicks Coach
by Bovada Sportsbook Staff | April 25, 2014
With all due respect to the Los Angeles Lakers, no team in the NBA was more disappointing this season than the New York Knicks. After all, the Knicks won 54 games last season, their most since 1994-95, and reached the Eastern Conference semifinals. Everyone of importance was back and the team even traded with Toronto for former No. 1 overall pick Andrea Bargnani. Owner James Dolan talked of a championship.
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Instead the Knicks flopped, winning 37 games. No team with the likes of Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler and Amare Stoudemire has any right missing the playoffs in the Eastern Conference this year with it being as bad as it was. Only Anthony played well all year, finishing second in the league in scoring. Bargnani, predictably to many, was a huge bust.
The writing was on the wall for Coach Mike Woodson when the Knicks hired 11-time NBA champion Phil Jackson as team president in mid-March. Dolan notoriously likes to interfere in basketball decisions, but Jackson was promised total autonomy and got a deal worth $11 million a season.
Jackson has said he won’t be coaching the team – his bad hips & knees won’t allow that for long stretches, leaving one of the premiere jobs in the NBA open. The problem is
that Anthony is a free agent and could leave; the Knicks have no salary cap room and no first-round pick in this summer’s draft. And then there’s coaching in the shadow of Jackson. At the first three-game losing streak next season, fans in the Garden will chant: "We want Phil!"
Bovada offers a Knicks prop on who will coach the team next season.
Steve Kerr (1/3): He is the clear front-runner and already has an interview/conversation scheduled with Jackson. Kerr is former GM of the Suns with no coaching experience but more importantly played under Jackson with the Bulls. He knows the triangle offense, which Jackson wants any coach to install, and has Jackson’s respect. Kerr has made it known he wants to leave his TV job to coach.
Brian Shaw (5/1): If Shaw hadn’t signed on to be Denver’s coach this past season, he might be the favorite for the Knicks job. Shaw won three championships with Jackson while with the Lakers and is well-schooled like Kerr in the triangle offense. He also was a long-time assistant coach so he has the coaching experience that Kerr lacks. Again, though, he’s under contract with the Nuggets. Would they let him out?
Jackson (15/2): This props asks who will coach the team for Game 1 next season. That’s key wording. There has been talk that if Jackson doesn’t get someone he likes this offseason, he might coach the team to start next season until he finds the perfect candidate.
Kurt Rambis (15/2): He has head coaching experience in the NBA, although it didn’t go well in Minnesota. Rambis was a former assistant under Jackson with the Lakers and is a triangle guy.
Jim Cleamons (15/2): Cleamons has made it known he would like the job and he was an assistant under Jackson with the Bulls and Lakers for a total of nine of Jackson’s 11 championships. Cleamons was just 28-70 in a head coaching stint with Dallas in 1996-98.
Derek Fisher (10/1): He’s still playing with the Oklahoma City Thunder but is expected to retire at the end of the year. Some players don’t like Fisher because they believe he helped negotiate a terrible CBA with owners during the 2011 lockout. Fisher was pushed out as president of the NBA Players’ Association after that. He won five rings as a player under Jackson.
Scottie Pippen (20/1): Of course Pippen, a Hall of Famer, was Robin to Michael Jordan’s Batman on those six-time NBA champion Bulls coached by Jackson. Pippen has no coaching experience but there were rumors back in 2012 that the Orlando Magic were going to hire Jackson as an executive and he was going to install Pippen as head coach.
