Report: Knicks Hiring Hornets Assistant Coach

Jent's most recent work yielded a championship, as he guided the Charlotte Hornets' prospects to a Summer League championship in Las Vegas last month. Jent joined the Charlotte Hornets' staff led by Charles Lee last season, which followed a two-year term with the Los Angeles Lakers.

The 55-year-old Sparta (NJ) High School alum has been a head coach twice: he spent a season at the helm of the NBA D-League's Bakersfield Jam (now the Motor City Drive) in 2015-16, just about a decade after he was the interim boss of the Orlando Magic for 18 games after Johnny Davis' in-season ousting.

Coming to New York is a bit of a homecoming for Jent, who briefly played for the Knicks in 1997. He also earned a championship ring with the Houston Rockets three years prior, ironically defeating the Knicks in a memorable seven-game set.

Since then, Jent has lingered on professional sidelines since 2003, with the exception of two stints (2011-13, 2016-17) with his alma mater Ohio State. He has developed a reputation as a strong offensive mind and served as LeBron James' personal shooting coach during a five-year term with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Most of that term featured Brown as the head coach, and the triumvirate helped guide the Cavs to the 2007 NBA Finals.

Jent is the latest reported addition to Brown's first metropolitan staff, a group that mixes his handpicked newcomers and holdovers from the Tom Thibodeau regime. Longtime Los Angeles Clippers assistant Brendan O'Connor, for example, is said to be heading up the defensive front as New York embarks on a pressure-packed journey that will seek to build on the franchise's first conference finals sowing since 2000.