Report: Knicks Could Target Former Playoff Foe as Assistant Coach

If the New York Knicks can't beat him, they might as well ask him to join them.

Per Ian Begley of SNY, the Knicks "have been in contact" with current Indiana Pacers assistant coach Mike Weinar to take on a similar position on Mike Brown's new staff in Manhattan. The Pacers, of course, have ended each of the last two Knicks seasons, including the most recent with a six-game victory in the Eastern Conference Finals in June.

Further intel from Stefan Bondy of the New York Post states that Weinar would be a "strong candidate" to be the Knicks' "top assistant," a spot held by the retained Rick Brunson in the final year of the Tom Thibodeau era.

Weinar, 38, has been around for both of those triumphs, as he has been stationed with the Pacers since 2021. He has been a close confidant of head coach and former Knick Rick Carlisle, as he also served on his Dallas Mavericks staff, including the one that earned an NBA title in 2011.

"He’s a relentless worker. He’s a guy who pushes himself to get better every single minute of every single day," Carlisle was said to have said of Weinar in 2017, per Steve Aschburner of NBA.com. "He’s gained a lot of additional responsibility as time has gone on. I depend on him for a lot of different things and he’s a very good friend, too, which is probably the most important thing to me.”

Prior to making the NBA leap, Weinar was a graduate assistant at his alma mater of Florida, where he was a student manager on two national championship runs.

A chase for Weinar is the latest Knick coaching rumor to emerge over the weekend: earlier on Sunday, Frank Isola of ESPN/YES Network reported that the Knicks also had their eye on brief Knick and current Charlotte underling Chris Jent, fresh off an undefeated run as the boss of a Summer League squad.