Jerry Sloan Should Not Take the New York Knicks' Coaching Job

Posted: March 20, 2012 at 1:37 am


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COMMENTARY | What have we learned from the Mike D'Antoni experiment with the New York Knicks?

Coaches who can't handle media and fan pressure to win a championship now can not sit on the sideline of the basketball team in the biggest NBA market.

Also, if the star player, in this case Carmelo Anthony, doesn't get what he wants, New York is ready to make any change to make his life better. Anthony didn't want to do what D'Antoni asked him to do on the court, so he didn't. Instead of the front office backing their coach, it took sides with Anthony; the player they made a blockbuster trade with the Denver Nuggets to acquire right around this time last year.

This led to D'Antoni leaving the Knicks. If he didn't quit, he surely would have been canned in a matter of weeks.

Ex-Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan has been mentioned in filling the shoes left by D'Antoni that Mike Woodson is temporally sizing. If the former long time coach of the Jazz (1988-2011) took the job, the same kind of situation would happen.

In my mind, Sloan is a far superior coach to D'Antoni. He has won 1,221 games for a winning percentage of 60% compared to D'Antoni's 388 wins and 53%. Sloan has coached in far more overall games than D'Antoni so it isn't fair off of numbers, but Sloan was never surrounded in the controversy D'Antoni has been in his shorter career.

Not only was D'Antoni in the fire with New York for most of his three and a half seasons there, but he was roasting in Phoenix (2003-08) when the Suns didn't play any defense and couldn't get to the finals with arguably a top five point guard to ever play in the NBA: Steve Nash.

Even though I think Sloan is a better coach and would improve the Knicks from their current slumber, Sloan would get the axe or quit in a short time span as well.

Sloan didn't quit because of fights or quarrels with his two superstars - Karl Malone and John Stockton - but left Utah in 2011 when Deron Williams shared words with him. In a press conference around the time he resigned from Utah, Sloan said "I've had player confrontations for as long as I've been in the league. My energy is not as high as it used to be."

If Sloan didn't have the energy a year ago with a small market team, how is he going to have the energy now as coach of the gaudy and well followed Knicks? He wouldn't.

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Jerry Sloan Should Not Take the New York Knicks' Coaching Job

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March 20th, 2012 at 1:37 am

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