After former Knick Pablo Prigioni decided to stay with the Minnesota Timberwolves, the New York Knicks are pivoting to another external candidate, but a familiar name to join Mike Brown’s coaching staff, SNY’s Ian Begley reports.
“One coach squarely on NYK radar for an assistant job under Mike Brown? Clippers assistant coach Brendan O’Connor, league sources tell SNY. O’Connor has strong defensive acumen, has worked for LAC under Ty Lue and Doc Rivers,” Begley wrote on X on July 26.
O’Connor was on Larry Brown’s coaching staff in New York during the Hall of Fame coach’s ill-fated one-year Knicks stint in the 2005-06 season.
Before his short-lived stop in New York, O’Connor was with Brown on the Detroit Pistons championship team in 2004. O’Connor started his NBA coaching journey as an advanced scout for the Pistons in 2000 under George Irvine and later on under Rick Carlisle before Brown elevated him to the bench.
After New York, O’Connor reunited with Eric Musselman, who first gave him his first coaching break at the defunct USBL, in Sacramento for a season. Then he rejoined Brown for several years in Charlotte before joining Brooklyn with P.J. Carlesimo.
In 2013, Rivers hired him as an assistant coach with the Clippers, where he has been for the past 12 years.
In a 2023 interview with Ball 603, O’Connor said it’s hard to leave the Clippers, who have a champion coach in Tyronne Lue and a great owner in Steve Ballmer.
“It would have to be a really good situation for me to leave here,” O’Connor said at the time. “It would be great to do all the things you want to try. But I love the position I am in right now.”
Why Pablo Prigioni Spurned the Knicks
Getty Pablo Prigioni decided to stay in Minnesota amid the New York Knicks’ interest in a reunion
The Knicks are having a hard time poaching coaches to join Brown’s staff outside of his unemployed former staffers in Sacramento.
They previously targeted New Orleans associate head coach James Borrego, Dallas Mavericks assistant Jay Triano, Prigioni and others for an assistant position under Brown, according to Begley, but failed.
The Knicks were granted permission to speak with Prgioni. But the Argentine coach opted to remain with the Timberwolves, citing family reasons, according to Begley.
“They will presumably continue to look for an assistant to help on offense even if they add O’Connor to help guide the defense,” Begley added.
Mike Brown’s Coaching Staff Slowly Takes Shape
GettyThe New York Knicks are adding familiar names to Mike Brown’s staff.
The Knicks will add two of Brown’s former assistants from the Sacramento Kings, Charles Allen and Riccardo Fois, according to Hoopshype’s Michael Scotto.
Allen and Brown were not retained by the Kings after the past season. They will join holdovers Rick Brunson, Mark Bryant, Maurice Cheeks and Darren Erman in Brown’s staff in New York, according to Begley.
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, Scotto added.
New York Post’s Stefan Bondy also reported that longtime Thibodeau assistant Andy Greer will not return.
Yoshimoto and Greer had been with Tom Thibodeau in his coaching stops in Chicago, Minnesota and New York.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Knicks Eye Former Larry Brown Assistant After Another Rejection appeared first on Heavy Sports.