The Knicks’ MISHANDLED head coach search and the Nuggets FAILING Nikola Jokic ⁉️ | First Take

The Knicks’ MISHANDLED head coach search and the Nuggets FAILING Nikola Jokic ⁉️ | First Take

suffered Achilles which is an issue in itself in the league that Adam Silver did discuss including Tyrese Hallebertton at the worst time game seven Jason Tatum and of course Damen Lillard so with all these injuries in the conference are the Knicks or Cavs under more pressure to make the finals next season you want to take it i’ll take it and to me it’s obvious it’s the Knicks yes the Cavaliers won 64 games yes the Cavaliers lost in the second round of the playoffs but no disrespect to our guy Brian Winhorse they also play in Cleveland right they have a young team they just hired a new coach Kenny Atinson they are moving forward the New York Knicks play here in Manhattan as you as you know Molly they have fired their coach after making their first conference finals in 25 years there’s a guy who sits here a lot who certainly has a lot of faith in the Knicks going forward and this is a veteran team that traded for Carl Anthony Towns that traded for Muel Bridges to believe they could take steps forward they have the season they had last year they lose the way they did to the Pacers where they blow game one of that series at home on the crazy Tigers Hallebertton shot they lose that series they fire their coach which to me when you fire a coach in the conference after making the conference finals there’s only one thing that’s acceptable which is making the NBA finals and or winning a championship and as you just said before no Tyrese Hallebertton no Damen Lillard no Jason Tatum next year the Eastern Conference is totally wide open the Knicks have not won a title in 50 years they are a team that’s not made the NBA finals since 1999 they This is their opportunity right now if they go get a couple pieces to add around their guys this summer if they do eventually hire a coach which I suspect they’ll eventually hire a coach process of elimination process of elimination they have to eventually get somebody this is the Knicks year they have to take advantage of this opportunity they’re probably never going to have a better chance than they do right now with this group to win next season and if they don’t you have to really start to wonder if they’re going to be able to because the East is completely wide open for him mcmahon I do agree it’s teed up for the Knicks i Yeah I see what Bon Tims is saying and certainly there’s a different sort of pressure when you’re in New York as Rick Carl once said the cesspool that is New York media speaking so eloquently about our big apple brethren but come on the 64 win Cavaliers are pretenders right now they have to be labeled as pretenders when you are eliminated in the second round with the ease that they were so there’s definitely some pressure that comes along with that you know they’ve got this core four that and credit to them they raised the expectations in Cleveland by rolling to those 64 wins this regular season but there is pressure that comes along with that especially when the playoffs were such a disappointment for Cleveland keith more pressure to make the finals Knicks or Cavs uh uh I I would I would I would piggy back what all Tim said i’m definitely saying the Knicks right because of the success they had this year you you bring back those core guys you were one game of them going to the finals you bring back that core team and you’re looking at you know to repeat the same success that you had right obviously it’s based off of what coach you bring and I and I and and I’m not really really on the side of like what’s taking so long i’m just on the side of why so many coaches why are you Why are you It’s It’s supposed to be a collective about three four especially when you already knew you were going to fire tips it’s supposed to be about three coaches and you choose from those the disappointing part is that you’re you’re you’re interview 10 to 12 coaches like that’s not going to get it done right you have to bring in the right guys to be able to lead this team because you have the core guys that you need you don’t really have to go out and do much maybe get some bench players that’s actually going to play this year and after that you put yourself in prom position maybe I’m naive i was going to say you look like you’re in pain listening to black talk no and obviously we’re here in New York i just find it hard to believe that the Knicks would get rid of a guy like Tibs and not have any plan at all whatsoever but that’s what it appears to be when they reached out for a few different guys got denied eodoka being one of them obviously and and a bunch of them got extensions after Billy Donovan did him a lot of favors in that sense have you ever seen a coaching search more mishandled i don’t know if I’d quite go that far yet because we have to see where it lands to Mary’s point look if the Knicks hire a coach in September and they go on to make the finals then they handle it right right so some of this is the results over the process but to your point the Knicks fire Tom Thibido coming off of the best season they’ve had in 25 years coming off the best three-year stretch they’ve had in 25 years a guy who is perfectly in sync with Jaylen Brunson their star player jaylen Brunson their star player who was asked after game six of the conference finals when they lost do you think Tom Thibido is the right coach of the team and he was incredulous that the question was even being asked right then two days later Tom Thibido is fired and to your point if you’re at this point and you’re the Knicks and you fire your coach you would think you would know what you want to do in terms of replacing him and here we are several weeks later the Knicks still don’t have a coach we’re not sure exactly when they’re going to have a coach and to your point it seemed like they wanted to get one of these guys that was available maybe they thought they could get one of them and they couldn’t and now we’re kind of sitting here waiting to see what the next shoe to drop is going to be so yeah like I don’t think it you should feel especially great about the process so far now if the result works out later it’s one thing but yeah the Knicks when you fire Tom Thibido with the success he had you say “All right we know what we want to do we’re going to go get it.” Right now it doesn’t seem like they know what they want mcmahon I can’t believe I’m asking this and maybe it’s a New York bias but I is the New York’s head coaching job still a desirable one well you know what coaches really want they want talent and they want money and not necessarily in that order by the way and the Knicks have a lot of both look would Jason Kidd have been interested in discussing the job with the Knicks yeah absolutely but guess what you don’t always just get what you want and the Mavericks why would the Mavericks give him permission to do that and Nico Harrison was asked about it again last night and he’s like “No Jason Kidd’s going to be our coach this season.” So if you’re going to run off the most successful coach the franchise has had since Pat Riley you probably ought to have a plan better than hey maybe one of these teams that really likes their coach will just let us poach them this is a really desirable job this is a job I think just about any coach would want to have sort of the fascinating situation the Knicks are I got to pause you on one thing the reason I said that is sometimes people are critical of ownership yes well no and that’s fair and look you could say ownership you know ownership certainly had an involvement in whether they were going to keep top or not if Joan Stolen wanted top to be the coach he’d be the coach right but the thing that’s fascinating about this is this is a great job like Tim said the Knicks pay really well they have a ton of talent their East is wide open the problem is usually every year there’s a guy that’s sitting there so oh there’s a championship level coach out there to go get that guy isn’t sitting there so the Knicks move on from Tom Thibido they tried to get Billy Donovan and Jason Kidd these other guys they’re not there now you’re going “All right what are the Knicks going to do?” That’s where we’re sitting now keith could the head coach be a tipping point for them like how much of a differencemaker is it that they get this right i mean you you you coming from a coach that the players like like like so so you have to get this right it can’t be a guy that’s coming in is just like we’re going to do it my way and that’s the way right because they kind of was with that with Tom Tibid already so they’re looking for a guy that that that can connect with the players that doesn’t have to do much right this is a playerdriven team you just need a guy that just lead these guys in the right direction they have everything that you need for us as an organization uh going into that second apron is not necessarily something that we’re scared of uh I think that there are rules around it that we needed to be very careful of with our injury history um the wrong person gets injured and very quickly you’re into a scenario where uh that I never want to have to contemplate and that’s trading number 15 um and so uh you know we’re very conscious of that pushing forward you guys have obviously been around Nola you probably I would expect be looking to offer him an extension over the course of this summer do you expect to be offering that and do you expect him to accept it uh we’re definitely going to offer it i’m not sure if he’s going to accept it or not because we’re also going to explain every financial parameter around him signing now versus signing later be completely transparent that’s the way we always are and then he makes the best decision for himself and his family and we’ll support him in it mcmahon coming to you on this do you feel like the Nuggets have failed Jokic since winning the title of course they have why else would they have fired their general manager and head coach with you know whatever it was like a few games left in the regular season so that was an admission that they had failed that was an admission that the direction of the franchise was going the wrong way they had to get things turned around now they’ve got some work to do but they they were the team that pushed the Thunder to seven games in the Western Conference playoffs they were the biggest challenger to the Thunder but yeah when you have a talent a like Nicole Joic a historically dominant player like Joker if he wins a title in his career then it’s only one championship like Dirk Nitzky won only one championship in Dallas that is not squeezing the most out of that level of Hall of Fame talent keith I wouldn’t necessarily say fell right because they’ve had good seasons like you know what I mean 57 and 25 one year they lost to a good Minnesota team in game seven and like Tim just said you went to the the second round last year and then and lost to the the eventual uh NBA champions and in game seven right so I wouldn’t say fell you had to move some pieces around but the the pieces that you move around the guys that stepped in those positions they grew it wasn’t like that um they just lost those pieces and nobody was able to step in if if Aaron Gordon isn’t hurt and has has a a hamstring injury that game might go different so you never know i wouldn’t say failed them because they always had successful regular seasons and went to game seven you know the ball can fall either way and you had a big injury they they did a great job of keeping their core pieces together so I necessarily wouldn’t say felt it just fell a little short couple things this is a reminder of how thin the margins are in the NBA the the Denver Nuggets blew a 20-point lead to the Minnesota Timberwolves two years ago in game seven of the second round at home if they win that game they were the team the Celtics always were afraid of last year i think they repeat as champions instead they lose in the second round you come back this year as Keith said Aaron Gordon gets hurt you push the Thunder all the way as far as they can go they’re up eight in the fourth quarter of game four at home they win that game i think they go on to win the championship they do not the Thunder beat them the Thunder go on to win the title so I don’t know if I would say they fail because of that but they did not get to what their objective was right which again to Tim’s point Calvin Booth gets fired at the end of the regular season michael Malone gets fired at the end of the regular season calvin Booth said after they won the first title they could win three or four with this group well they haven’t got back to the conference finals since so that is a failure that is why they have a new coach in front office also I feel bad a little bit for Josh Kroni we in the media always want people to be honest those are two honest answers right i think very direct and fair answers like “Hey we’re going to talk to Cole Joic about all the financial questions that come with this extension hey if we have some devastating injury like what happened with Boston we have to examine our future.” Then it turns into oh man the Nuggets are they think are they going to think about trading Nicole Joic why are they saying this i mean look the bigger question I have for Josh Kroni and Denver is this is a team that has consistently not paid up to the level required and with the money that they have at their disposal the Cronis have as much money as any ownership group in the league this is a team that has lacked in depth that has lacked in you know spending on front office talent in the past they now have a cog situation which is an interesting setup it’s not a tra traditional one in the league so to me it’s about going forward what are the Denver Nuggets going to do to continue to put Nicole Joic in positions where he is in a he does have chances to win a championship because this is the guy who’s the best player on the planet he should be fighting for championships not repeatedly losing in the second round of the playoffs like he has last couple years big man before I come to you I just have to push back on one thing you said i’m 100% with you in terms of we asked for honesty and transparency and then we crucified him but in that same breath you just said it best player on the planet like you cannot say that publicly about your best player that you’d consider trading him

Tim MacMahon, Tim Bontemps and Markieff Morris join Molly Qerim on First Take to discuss storylines surrounding the New York Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers and Denver Nuggets.

0:00 Pressure on Knicks and Cavs
3:40 NYK coaching search
7:29 Josh Kroenke’s comments

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