While the Post’s Marc Berman suggests Toronto’s Sam Mitchell as a viable candidate for the Knicks’ coach vacancy and the New York Times’ William Rhoden suggests Avery Johnson (time for Mark Cuban to ban The Gray Lady from the the locker room), one prominent car wash magnate / fashion plate / Michael Jordan bag-carrier confidante reminds us New York already as a qualified individual on the payroll. From The New York Post’s Mark Hale.
“Herb Williams would bring just as much as Lenny Wilkens brought here. More than Isiah. No question,” Oakley (above) said. “All he needs is a chance.
I think they should give him a chance because every time they’ve asked him to do something, he’s done it over the years. Interim coach, he’s done it. Coached after the season, he’s done it. So what’s left besides giving him a chance?
“I think that you should start with what you’ve got here and take a good look. He’s been there every time you called. You got sick, he went and got the medicine to make you better.”
Asked further whether he believed Williams should be the coach, Oakley replied, “I think he should be. Or bring Patrick back. Patrick at least [was] assistant coach three or four years. Mark in the studio with NBC, whatever. So I don’t know. I don’t know how they pick coaches these days.”
Oakley said Thomas’ firing was long overdue: “He should have gotten fired a couple years ago.”
In fact, Oakley said he believes Williams was more deserving of being coach than Thomas, Wilkens or Larry Brown.
“They should have [given] Herb the job,” Oakley said. “That was embarrassing to bring [Thomas] to New York. What he’s done over the last five years for the team is garbage.”
Hale collected the above remarks at a screening for the pilot of “Cafe Oakley”, a new cooking program that sadly, cannot be found on YouTube. Yet.
If Shaq wants to go off on the flop-happy Spurs, I’m all ears. Should Chris Bosh decide to bury Sam Mitchell, by all means, bring on the blog-fodder. But I’m not sure if I have what it takes to give a hoot about a war of words between Mike Bibby and Kendrick Perkins.