One insider says that the New York Knicks aren’t looking for the Wright stuff.
Per Stefan Bondy of the New York Post, former Villanova men’s basketball head coach Jay Wright “is not a candidate for the vacant Knicks job.” Wright, of course, is best known for his time at the helm of the Wildcats, where he coached current Knicks stars Mikal Bridges, Jalen Brunson, and Josh Hart.
“[Wright] and [Knicks president] Leon Rose are close,” Bondy reported. “Leon understands Jay is happy in retirement.”
Wright has persisted as a popular coaching candidate for the Knicks, even before the team surprisingly ousted Tom Thibodeau earlier this week. As the top man on the Main Line, Wright guided the Wildcats to two national championships and turned Villanova into one of the top men’s programs of the new millennium.
Wright previously coached in New York as the top man at Hofstra on Long Island, guiding the Flying Dutchmen to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in over two decades back in 2000.
Since stepping down from the helm of the Wildcats in 2022, Wright has served as an analyst for CBS Sports’ college basketball coverage. Seth Davis, one of Wright’s broadcast partners, hinted at Wright’s potential denial of the position shortly after Thibodeau’s firing, claiming that there was a “greater chance that I [Davis] will be the next Knicks coach than [Wright]” in a Tuesday X post.
Wright’s name has frequently lingered in NBA head coaching discussions, but he has turned down every opportunity. Shortly after his retirement, he said that he’d “be lying” if he said he’d fully eschewed the idea of rising into the Association, though he admitted that he “scratched that itch” through his time as an assistant coach with the United States’ men’s national basketball team during the red, white, and blue’s gold medal run at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo.
“That was something I alwahys thought about,” Wright said at the time, per ESPN. “I kind of feel like I did it a little bit and I loved coaching those guys.”
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