All the buzz for the past week has been about the New York Knicks coaching vacancy after parting ways with Tom Thibodeau. Even with the NBA Finals tied at one game apiece, the Knicks are still receiving major headlines regarding what their next move will be. That move very well could include current Dallas Mavericks head coach, Jason Kidd. Or at least that’s what Knicks fans and the basketball world are being led to believe.
In fact, the word that’s going around is that Kidd may be using New York’s interest to land an extension in Dallas. The Mavs are likely to only let this go so far before pulling the carpet from under the Knicks and snapping them back into reality, at least that's what's been reported by Christian Clark and Sam Amick of The Athletic.
All signs point to Jason Kidd staying with the Mavs
If this is true it’s just the Knicks’ luck that they’d be used as leverage by their No. 1 option so he could get more money with his current team. Despite being the No. 1 media market in the country, the Knicks are forever playing the role of bridesmaid. Usually, it’s a big-name player they’re missing out on, but this time it might be the coach they want to replace the one who just got the team to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 25 years.
With the Mavs, Kidd has the No. 1 pick in this year’s NBA Draft and Dallas is expected to take the No. 1 prospect out of Duke, Cooper Flagg. The Mavs also have current veteran stars like Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving although the latter is recovering from a late-season ACL tear. Then there’s the issue of trust in the front office after Mavs general manager gave away Luka Doncic in February.
So, while there are pros and cons on both sides, it doesn’t sound like Knicks fans should hold their breath just yet expecting Kidd to be the next coach running the show in NYC. We’ll see how long this gets dragged out, but it sounds like the Knicks may want to begin looking into their backup plan if they’ve even got one.