Report: Knicks Will Hire Jeff Hornacek As Head Coach

According to Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck, the New York Knicks will hire former Suns coach Jeff Hornacek to lead the team next year. Hornacek went 101-112 in two seasons and change with the Phoenix Suns, and he was at the helm when they almost made the playoffs in 2013-2014. He was fired after the team had a terrible 14-35 start to this season.

This is a rather surprising end to a coaching search that seemed that it would be a mere formality, eventually culminating in the rehiring of horny Kurt Rambis. Phil Jackson was reportedly on the verge of hiring him a few weeks ago, and his subsequent vacation and suspension of the coaching search made it seem like Rambis was going to hold onto the coaching reigns. But Frank Vogel and David Blatt started to pop up in connection with the job in the recent past. Both men have professional connections to Jackson, so his interest in them still fits his hiring pattern.

But Hornacek isn’t connected to the Jackson coaching tree and he’s (obviously) never run the triangle. Given Jackson’s seemingly ironclad devotion to the archiac offense, Hornacek’s hiring could signal that the Knicks will move away from the triangle or that Jackson possibly didn’t have as large a hand in this hiring. Perhaps Hornacek is willing to adapt to the triangle, but he ran fast, modern offenses with few long twos. If this truly is Phil Jackson ceding some ground to modernity, good. Let’s get Kristaps Porzingis to shoot a million threes a game.

There are, however, some less-than-certain reports coming out, but the deal appears to be imminent.

Hey it’s the Knicks! No way they could fuck this one up, right?