The New York Knicks appear to be in the final stages of their coaching search, and former Kings coach Mike Brown "...appears to be the clubhouse leader for the job," according to James L. Edwards III of The Athletic, but the team will also conduct second interviews with James Borrego and Micah Nori.
I like Mike Brown as a coach and thought he got a raw deal in Sacramento, a team he helped reach the postseason for the first time in nearly two decades. He's a capable coach and deserves to be on a staff somewhere. But I don't think that "somewhere" is New York.
How much higher does Brown lift the ceiling of these Knicks than Tom Thibodeau did? If Brown coached the Knicks this year, would they have made the NBA Finals? If the answer to that question isn't a confident yes, then he shouldn't be the answer; remember, Tom Thibodeau was fired after the Knicks made the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 25 years, so the next coach must be able to make the NBA Finals — or the hiring will be a failure, full stop.
The front office said it wants to win a championship. I don't think hiring Mike Brown gets them closer to winning that championship. I don't think it would get them further away from winning one either, to be fair, but a lateral move is not what this franchise evisions, and I think hiring Brown would be just that.
Mike Brown is a good coach, but he wouldn't lift this Knicks team
The Knicks would still be good under Brown's watch, perhaps even very good. He's a respected coach who has made the postseason in seven of the nine full years he's held a job as an NBA head coach. Those postseason runs include one NBA Finals run in 2006-07 and one ECF run in 2008-09, both with Cleveland.
But those teams had one thing in common — a near-prime LeBron James who could have led pretty much any roster to greatness. That's not to downplay Brown's coaching job in those years; plenty of teams with all-time players still faltered, and Brown still did a great job to help coach those teams to near-greatness. The 2025 New York Knicks don't have prime LeBron James.
Borrego or Nori might be better options than Brown
If there aren't any veteran coaches with championship pedigree available for hire... I think New York needs to go with a new voice. Both of the other choices — Borrego and Nori — could bring fresh perspectives. Borrego was victim of perhaps the most outrageous firing in the past 25 years in the NBA in Charlotte, and Nori was a top assistant in Minnesota under Chris Finch.
Both of these guys could be worse coaches than Mike Brown; but they also could help this team make the final leap in the Eastern Conference, and that unknown is why New York needs to go with one of them. Why play it safe now after firing your (very successful) previous coach?