New York Knicks team president Phil Jackson is pushing for the organization to remove the interim tag from head coach Kurt Rambis and hire him full-time.
ESPN’s Marc Stein and Ian Begley wrote Wednesday that a source close to the New York Knicks believes Knicks team president Phil Jackson is in favor of removing the interim tag from head coach Kurt Rambis to make him the full-time head coach in 2016-17.
Rambis replaced former Knicks head coach Derek Fisher on February 8 and the Knicks have gone 8-16 with Rambis at the helm. Like Fisher, Rambis stems from the Jackson coaching tree, as Rambis had been on four of Jackson’s 11 NBA Championship staffs.
It’s no secret that while Jackson is getting up there in age and can’t handle the day-to-day grind of being an NBA head coach anymore, he would prefer to have a protegé like Rambis run the Triangle Offense with the Knicks centered around star players Carmelo Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis.
If owner James Dolan is still willing to listen to the ramblings of the Zen Master about the Triangle Offense some more when conducting a full-time replacement for Fisher this offseason, one would have to believe that Rambis would be on the short list of the next head coach of the Knicks.
Rambis has been an NBA head coach before with the Minnesota Timberwolves (2009-11), so he’s not completely out of his element in having the interim tag removed. However if top assistant with the Golden State Warriors Luke Walton is willing to leave the Bay Area for the Big Apple, expect Jackson to entertain making Walton the next head coach of the Knicks.
Though Walton is too familiar with the Triangle as a former member of the Lakers rotation in the 2000s, he may very well end up staying on Steve Kerr’s staff in Oakland, leaving Rambis as a reasonable candidate for the full-time gig with the Knicks in 2016-17 and beyond.
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