Another NBA team shuts down Knicks' head-coaching search

The New York Knicks seem to be grasping at straws after a fourth NBA team shut down their efforts to hire away their head coach. Already denied permission by the Houston Rockets and Minnesota Timberwolves to interview Ime Udoka and Chris Finch, respectively, the Knicks were turned down by the Dallas Mavericks (Jason Kidd) early Wednesday and then the Atlanta Hawks (Quin Snyder).

Now, the Knicks have to find a coach to replace Tom Thibodeau, who took the Knicks to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 25 years last season. It's not just rival teams stopping the Knicks. If any of these candidates were interested in the New York job, teams could work out trade compensation for hiring a coach under contract. The speed of these denials suggests the coaches themselves don't want to go to New York.

Clearly the Knicks fired Thibodeau without a succession plan. They don't seem to have confirmed that Snyder, Kidd and company were even interested in the job, something teams can figure out via back channels in an NBA where legal tampering abounds.

Firing Thibodeau after he had the winningest five-year run with the team since Jeff Van Gundy can't make prospective coaches confident about their job security in the Big Apple. If Thibs was fired because he only won two playoff series, that's a high bar for whoever takes over.

Worst of all, the Knicks' new head coach will take over knowing that they were at best the team's fifth choice for the job. Can the Knicks front office believably claim they got their preferred candidate after publicly pining over other teams' coaches?

Whatever the Knicks were originally envisioning for the post-Thibodeau era clearly isn't coming to fruition. Their next step is finding a coach who is actually available.