The New York Knicks fired head coach Tom Thibodeau, and experts are already speculating about who could replace him.
The New York Knicks shockingly fired head coach Tom Thibodeau after he led them to their first Eastern Conference Finals since 2000, although the franchise seems convinced that a change of leadership will get them over the hump.
There are plenty of experienced, qualified candidates at both the NBA and NCAA levels to take the reins, with realistic coaches and fan-favorites like Jeff Van Gundy and Jay Williams, who won a national title with the Villanova Wildcats with Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Mikal Bridges.
However, Thibodeau himself was a very qualified coach with many years of experience, so there is reason to believe that the Knicks would prefer to add a coach who has never handled the sidelines before.
Rajon Rondo has never been a paid NBA coach, although he served as a volunteer under Doc Rivers and the Milwaukee Bucks this past season.
Rondo is widely regarded as one of the smartest NBA players ever, and his prowess as a floor general is well-documented.
While he might have to work his way up the coaching ranks, one former player thinks that Rondo is already able to lead an NBA team.
“I’m going to give a dark horse, guys,” prefaced Jay Williams.
“If you ask any NBA player how they feel about Rajon Rondo, they always talk about how brilliant of an IQ that he has. And the fact that defensively, offensively, he’s great at building schemes on the fly.”
Rondo would likely have the buy-in from players who admired his game, and Rivers has long supported him, going back to their days together on the Boston Celtics.
“Ask Doc Rivers, one of those championship teams that he’s won,” Williams continued. “I’m not saying he’s going to win, but I definitely think that’s a name that people should consider to be an NBA head coach at this level because of his familiarity in the Eastern Conference.”
Rondo helped beat the Knicks in the first round of the 2011 NBA playoffs, but his tenure with the Celtics didn’t exactly line up with the Knicks’ years of prowess, so it’s hard to consider him a rival with bad blood with the franchise.
In recent years, former players like JJ Redick have taken over as head coaches despite not having any experience, and Chris Paul, in the coming years, could be the next.
Rondo does not have much coaching experience, although he seems to have the support of his limited mentees.
Other candidates like Wright, Dan Hurley, Van Gundy, Michael Malone, and Mike Budenholzer would be both flashier and safer hire, although with an established culture already existing in New York, adding a coach who has been in the players’ shoes would make a degree of sense, although with a title-worthy core already in place, a coach with experience managing personalities might be a better option than an experiment.
