New York Knicks: Hiring Jason Kidd would be a classic Knicks move

The New York Knicks have reportedly received permission to speak with Lakers assistant Jason Kidd for their coaching opening. It’s a classic Knicks move.

Leave it to the New York Knicks to have the chance at a fresh start but lean back towards their old mediocrity. In perhaps the most classic of Knicks interview decisions, according to Marc Stein, they’ve requested and received permission to interview Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach Jason Kidd for their vacant head coaching job.

Kidd has had a checkered past to say the least as a head coach and off the floor as well. He’s not just the coach who had a failed coup with the Brooklyn Nets in an effort to take organizational control, and the coach who after failing stabbed fellow head coach Larry Drew in the back when he took the Milwaukee Bucks job in the aftermath.

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He’s also the man who repeatedly physically abused his ex-wife Joumana, and when he played for the Knicks earlier in his career missed the first two games of his Big Apple tenure after getting into a one-vehicle accident while driving intoxicated.

The Knicks have a prime job opening in one of the most desirable locations in the NBA, they have a new president in Leon Rose and they have the opportunity to reinvent themselves after decades of disappointment and mediocrity.

Squandering the opportunity to start over after all these years of embarrassment, and doing it in this way, would be a tragedy that only the Knicks could adequately pull off.

According to Knicks source Steve Popper, one of the prime reasons that Kidd may have an inside track with teams looking to fill their coaching vacancies is that there is a belief that he may be a link to pending free agent Giannis Antetokounmpo. As all teams with any chance at Giannis’s services will do whatever it takes to get a shot at him, it makes sense that the Knicks would at least take a look, especially after completely striking out on last summer’s free agency bonanza.

Of course, Kidd won’t be the only candidate that Rose and the Knicks interview. This is certainly just a matter of the organization doing its due diligence in making the most important hire the team has had to make in years (decades?), but be that as it may, it’s hard to justify Kidd’s own candidacy from a decency and a competitive perspective.