It is the J R Sport Brief Show here with you coast to coast. on the Infinity Sports Network. We talked about some of the press conferences that took place earlier today. Big Twelve Media Day down in Texas, and then the New York Knicks holding a press conference to introduce their new head coach, Mike Brown. You know, Mike Brown has taken over for Tom Thibodeau, who helped lead the New York Knicks to the most success they've had in about 25 years.
Mike Brown, he spoke to the media. We heard some of his comments, but now we're going to speak to someone who was. Right there as he was introduced. Joining us right now is someone who covers the New York Knicks. For the New York Daily News, it's Christian Winfield.
Christian, welcome back, man. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I just touched back down at the house after a long trek back from Tarrytown.
So. uh finally uh got back to to home base after And a uh an interesting press conference will will say. uh with the new Nick Seg coach.
So excited to uh to join you to talk about it.
Well, thank you. You say it was interesting. I had a chance to see it. There were some things that were said. There was praise of Tom Thibodeau from Mike Brown.
What were your impressions on what you heard today? You know, when I say interesting, I think more so interesting because of the things that were left unsaid. you know, especially when you're dealing with a team. last season that reached, you know, an Eastern Conference finals that won 50 plus games for the for the second year in a row. Uh, for a team that has so many pieces, so many interesting pieces on both ends, and the job of Mike Brown is to come in and find ways to maximize those pieces on both sides of the floor.
Uh, around all questions regarding how he was going to do that, he didn't necessarily give a straightforward answer, which I thought Was the most interesting part of the entire day.
Now, some of that he said was left to be worked on because he still has to put together his coaching staff, which is something that he said he's going to work. And that he's excited to work and collaborate with Team President Leon Rose on But in terms of actually what he's going to do, what the offense is going to look like, what the defense is going to look like. You know, areas he thought that the team could improve from last year. Anything that, you know, could be tangible in terms of. What to expect on the court from a product standpoint?
There were very many answers, you know, which leaves you with more questions as you go into this offseason. We're really into training camp soon, and they've got time really to formulate a plan. And I believe that he has a plan. He mentioned his vision multiple times. He mentioned how excited he is for the challenge.
And he also mentioned that, you know, The team is already, and this is part of the allure and part of why there's so much pressure on this job as head coach of the Knicks. The team is already in a really good spot just based on the results that we saw on the floor yesterday. It's really just how do you optimize this group How do you get all your pieces to play to their best level on both ends of the floor? And how do you make a deeper playoff run? when you already reached heights that you haven't seen in the last quarter century, right?
I think from an enthusiasm standpoint, from a basketball history standpoint, Mike Brown is a guy who's won everywhere. He's gone, and he's excited to do the same thing here in New York. But in terms of actual what it's going to look like, X's and O's, you know, we really don't have very many answers yet. And I'm looking forward to the next time, be it to be training camp, be it preseason. We actually see what it looks like because we know this team is going to play well.
We saw them play well with Tom Thibodeau. We know that they're going to have more firepower off the bench, which is a big issue for them last year. But it's really how do you maximize these guys and how do you get them to kind of. Play to a better level. We know what we saw last year.
We saw a lot of lack of ball movement on one end, we saw defensive. Miscues on the other end. And some of those miscues, we're not sure how you're going to cover for because some of those miscues have been player-specific, right?
So, what's Mike Brown's approach going to be to fixing this defense? And what's his approach going to be to optimizing this offense? Those are the big questions. And unfortunately, even after a press conference where we ask them questions like this, they don't have answers.
So, the big questions coming into this offseason.
Well, Christian, given the New York Knicks' history, I'm s overall, I'm surprised you guys were even able to ask questions the way the Knicks behave.
Now, it has been said by the Knicks that they hired Mike Brown after a thorough search. We saw them fire Tom Thibodeau. And at that point, it was out there that they were trying to take other coaches from other teams, and then they landed on Mike Brown. Who ultimately was just let go by the Sacramento Kings? I know that he didn't want to discuss the past.
He wants to look forward to the future, but apparently he wasn't even their first choice, was he? Couldn't have been.
Well, I mean Great. I think everyone, just to use a practical example, everyone's first choice at a significant other might be Rihanna. Right, but that's just not possible sometimes.
Some people, sometimes, what you want is not. Out of the situations, right? You can't actually get it.
So you had to work within the bounds of what you could actually do, which is why the search was thorough because they went. Looking at other franchises and tried to poach those coaches, but obviously, when you have a good coach, you're going to do whatever it is that you can to retain them, right?
So Once they pass that part of the search and you start to look at the names that are on the board. And you start to look at a guy like Mike Brown and his resume and the accolades and just what he's been able to accomplish over an extremely long body of work. This guy was been in the NBA. For a very, very long time. And I asked them just about.
You know, just how his views on basketball have evolved as the game has evolved. And he mentioned that, you know, when earlier in his career, he was coaching Tim Duncan and David Robinson when. All of basketball is kind of an inside-out game, and then you fast-forward a few years, and now he's with Stephs and Clay and Kevin Durant. Draymond, you're playing five-out, and then a couple years after that, he's got one of the fastest, most efficient offenses in all of basketball. with the Sacramento Kings.
And then when you think about his championship run with the Cleveland Cavaliers, yes, you have LeBron, but that team was predicated largely on defense.
So this is a guy who's whose view of basketball has kind of evolved with the time And this is also a guy who's just well accomplished in the league. We're talking about another two-time coach of the year, talking about a guy who's made six NBA Finals appearances. He's either as an assistant or that one year when he took LeBron. And a team, if we really think about that LeBron Jay's Cavaliers team, you had LeBron and you had a bunch of other guys who were really just feeding off of LeBron. There was Mike.
Mike Brown's job to make that situation work and He turns that into an NBA Finals team. Obviously, LeBron, you could say he carried that team, but the coach plays a long role. uh in a big role, excuse me, in in how far a team can go.
So Mike has proven a different stop that he can win. He's proven also at different stops that he's going to find ways to maximize the pieces that you give him. And the Knicks have given him more pieces now in terms of Jordan Clarkson and Gershard Yabusele. But the pieces that are already there, the pieces that made up the core of this team, is really, as I mentioned, even though we don't really have answers as to how he's going to do it, it's about maximizing the options that he has in front of him. He seemed real excited about.
The idea of doing that in the weeks to come, of figuring out, and I guess getting to the drawing board and figuring out what it's gonna look like on the court. In terms of on paper, and we were talking about the different candidates that were available. I know a lot of people were talking about Mike Malone because he won the title and there wasn't any real traction there. We saw the other guys that they were interviewing in terms of Taylor Jenkins and you see the Braun Stanley reports as well. When you're in a situation like this, And you're taking a 50-plus win team that just got to the conference finals, you want to get a sure thing.
And just based on his track record, based on his history, McBarron is as close as you're going to get to a short thing that's available in the market right now, and to my understanding, that's why they made this decision. Nick's Beat Rider for the New York Daily News, Christian Winfield, is here with us on the JR Sport Breed Show Coast to Coast. And you talk about the coaching staff. We know that Rick Brunson was the associate coach right next to Tom Thibodeau. Is he going to be moved further down the bench?
And have we heard from any of the players as of yet?
Now that Mike Brown has officially been hired, we know Jalen was certainly a fan on Keepin' Tips. Yeah, uh no news on players in terms of You know how they've Uh, where there, I guess, are in terms of Mike Brown being hired, but we know that Mike Brown has already started reaching out to some of the guys. We know Carl Anthony Towns was laughing at a post about Mike Brown on Twitter in terms of what it's going to be like when he's. And he's coaching the Knicks.
So it appears that there's good vibes around the hire. In terms of the coaching staff, we know that that's something that's a work in progress. Not sure whether or not Rick Brunson is going to have as much, I guess we'll call it, poll as he did with Tom Thibodeau, but he's still another guy who's going to be on this bench whose insight and just expertise is going to be valuable. Especially when you talk about just connection and and Ps. Comfort with the players that are that are returning from last year and then from the from over the years.
But we also know that Mike, Mike Brown is going to want to bring his own guys into his staff, right? This is a guy who. Has such an extensive coaching history and it has made so many. Different, I guess, relationships over his career. That why not try, if you can, to go get a guy James Borrego that we've seen him reportedly trying to grab from New Orleans, right?
Damn, Rego's the guy who's been on a head coach in Charlotte, but also comes from the San Antonio Spurs tree, right?
So, I expect Mike Brown to try to find ways to get some of the guys that he likes onto this coaching staff. What it means for the guys who are already part or who were part of the coaching staff last year remains to be seen. We'll see who's back with the staff for next year. But I think that we can fully expect Mike Brown to get at least one of his guys in here sometime soon. Christian, you talk about the additions that the Knicks have made.
Jordan Clarkson, a former sixth man of the year, Yabusele, who's who turned his performance last year into a trip back into the NBA. We've seen kind of a slow drip here with free agency with some of the moves and trades. As it relates to the Knicks, This is pretty much, you can presume, going to be the roster come October, no? Yeah, and you know, this is kind of the expect the approach that I expected them to have. With the exception of if Giannis Andekumpo becomes available of one of those big names, if the Joker would have somehow become available for trade, right, maybe you take a home run swing for one of those guys.
But really, we know what this team's problems were from last year was a lack of depth and it was a lack of using the available depth. And if we're talking ball movement, X's and O's, that's a different conversation. From a roster standpoint, you had The worst scoring bench. The bench only averaged about 22 points per game in the regular season, which was the worst out of all 30, I think, by a three or four point margin. And then the playoffs, your bench is only giving you 16 points.
And we're just seeing from what Indiana and what Oklahoma City did in terms of getting to the NBA Finals based on their depth, you don't have that. You're not going to be able to compete, right? Depth is kind of the new meta right now.
So what do the Knicks do? They go out and get Jordan Clarkson, a guy who you just do the math. He's outscored everyone in terms of bench points over the last five years. And that's including him starting a year, right?
So in four years off the bench, he's outscored everyone over the last five years as a former sixth man of the year. And then you also, as you mentioned, go get Gershan Yabusele, who really had that breakout game or that breakout series in the Olympics, right? When he's just going off for team France. Signs with the Sixers and kind of uses that Olympic appearance to revitalize his career, goes to Philly and becomes a. Bill in center because Joel Limbiad's nat played about 80% of his minutes at the center spot last year and also shot at 39%.
So you're giving the Knicks some more versatility. In the front court, some more size in the front court, which was something they desperately needed. And then, on top of that, you're getting a guy who can really outscore the Knicks bench by himself in Jordan Clarkson. And he's also a guy who averages a sneaky number of assists. This is a guy who's averaged, I think, 3.74 and 5 assists over the last three years.
Jordan Clarkson is going to be really just an injection of productivity for this bench. And what that's going to do is not let you have to rely on your starters so much. Even though I think even if you weren't able to improve your bench this much, I think Mike Brown is the guy who would just read the room and realize we're going to have to play some of these eighth, ninth, and 10th screeners a little bit more just to preserve our starters. For the playoff run. But now that you bolstered this bench and you've given them this many options, you're looking at a team that's really set up to be fresh in April, as long as everyone's healthy.
And if this Knicks team can be fresh in April and you're still playing a deep rotation, I think you're in a good spot.
So kudos to the front office for going out and improving the bench. I didn't think they needed too much more. And they've still got another roster spot left. We'll see what happens. They've got another spot, minimum salary spot under the second apron.
So we'll see how they use that, who they target. Do they go for a guy who's bought out or is a free agent that was cut from another team? Or do they maybe re-sign one of their own guys? You can look at there's a case you made for Del Andrite and Andrew Shaman to return to this team.
So we'll see what it looks like with how they use that spot. Uh but This team has depth now, and that was really the big question mark. Were they going to be able to address it with such little flexibility salary cap-wise? They went out and did that. I think the Knicks had you can look at the Houston Rockets, who had probably the best offseason out of any NBA team.
But in terms of other than them, I think you can put the Knicks in terms of addressing needs up there with anybody else in the NBA. Optimis optimism for the New York Next. Hey, Christian, thank you so much for the time. Please tell everybody where they could follow you, all your works, all your writings with the New York Daily News. Absolutely.
Well, in the first place, if you if you wake up tomorrow morning and you go to your local store, Have a New York Daily Newspaper, go to that sports section. You're gonna see me covering the Knicks for the Daily News. But if you're online, like me, Hop on Twitter, go to New YorkDailyNews.com, Twitter at Chris Flash. If you're just looking up Nick stuff, I'm all over it.
So appreciate you for having me on the show. No doubt about it, Christian. We'll catch you down the line. My man, thanks for having me.
