Outside of Mike Brown’s former assistants, the New York Knicks continue to have a hard time adding their external candidates.
Minnesota Timberwolves assistant coach Pablo Prigioni is the latest to spurn the Knicks after they were granted permission to speak with him.
“Amid interest from Knicks, Minnesota assistant Pablo Prigioni decided to stay with Timberwolves, citing family reasons, league sources tell SNY,” Begley wrote on X.
Prigioni started his NBA career with the Knicks as the oldest rookie in NBA history at 35 during the 2012-13 season. He was a crowd favorite for his gusty plays and toughness that earned him a promotion to the starting unit during that season’s playoff run.
Timberwolves Highly Value Pablo Prigioni
After the Argentine retired from basketball, he went straight to coaching.
Prigioni briefly coached in the Euroleague before heading back to the NBA as an assistant coach with the Brooklyn Nets in 2018. The following season, he moved to the Timberwolves.
Prigioni, 48, will enter his seventh season with the Timberwolves. He is highly thought of in Minnesota and has been working closely with Rob Dillingham, per Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic.
Prigioni joins New Orleans Pelicans associate head coach James Borrego and Dallas Mavericks’ Jay Triano as the Knicks miss in their search to augment Brown’s coaching staff.
The Knicks will no longer bring back assistant video coordinator Nick Thibodeau, Tom Thibodeau’s nephew, along with assistant coaches Othella Harrington, Daniel Brad and Dice Yoshimoto, according to Hoopshype’s Michael Scotto.
New York Post’s Stefan Bondy added that longtime Thibodeau assistant Andy Greer will also not return. But Rick Brunson, Mark Bryant, Maurice Cheeks and Darren Erman are likely to remain, according to Begley.
Mike Brown Brings His Kings Crew to Knicks
GettyNew Knicks head coach Mike Brown will bring in two of his former assistants from Sacramento to New York.
The Knicks will add two of Brown’s former assistants from the Sacramento Kings, Charles Allen and Riccardo Fois, according to Scotto.
Allen spent the past season as player development coach for the Kings. He previously worked as an assistant video coordinator for the Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz and the Kings before his promotion to become head of video coordinators and later on as a player development/assistant coach.
On the other hand, Fois worked under Brown for the first half of last season in Sacramento. The 38-year-old Italian coach remained with the team after Brown’s dismissal. But the Kings did not bring him back after the season ended.
Brown is not only the connection Fois has to the Knicks organization. He has also worked with Mikal Bridges during their time together in Phoenix.
Fois started his NBA coaching career with the Suns as the director of player development from 2019 to 2021 after serving as director of analytics at Gonzaga, where he worked with future NBA players Domantas Sabonis, Rui Hachimura, Zach Collins and Killian Tillie. Following his stint with the Suns, he joined Arizona as an assistant coach and worked with future NBA players Ben Mathurin, Christian Koloko, Dalen Terry and Pelle Larson.
Fois is also an assistant coach with the Italian men’s basketball team, which reached the quarterfinals for the first time in 20 years. He also served as a video coordinator for Team USA, under Gonzaga coach Mark Few, which took home the bronze medal in the 2015 Pan American Games.
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