It's fair to say that Warriors assistant coach Luke Walton is one of the luckiest best assistant coaches in the league. And that means something, being that he temporarily replaced their ailing head coach Steve Kerr at the start of this season, and led the charge for the defending NBA champions to a 24-0 record.
Now just about every NBA team with a head coaching vacancy is interested in Walton, and the Warriors know that. Who wouldn't want to pick from their litter after their historic season? Former Warriors assistant Alvin Gentry got a head coaching job with the Pelicans last summer, so why shouldn't Luke get to shine, right?
The Suns have a head coaching job open, and Luke went to college at Arizona, so there's some familiarity there. Even Phil Jackson is possibly eyeing Walton to have him interview for the Knicks head coach job. That doesn't say much, being that he is dead ass about wanting Kurt Rambis to be their next coach, but he's still widening his tight candidate pool for the job. And if the Knicks want to talk with Luke, Dub Nation's front office is totally cool about it.
According to Marc Berman of the New York Post, this is something that's been brewing in Jackson's mind all season, and the Warriors are well aware of it:
If Knicks president Phil Jackson wanted to talk to Warriors stud assistant Luke Walton during their expected long playoff run, Golden State would not stand in the way, according to an NBA source.
Walton played for Jackson when he was coaching the Lakers in the 2000s, and was on those Kobe-led championship teams in 2009 and 2010. Therefore, he knows the Triangle Offense quite well. Hey, Walton's got a better winning percentage than Rambis as an NBA head coach, so the Knicks essentially will continue to have everything to lose not interviewing him. And, by now, perhaps Knicks fans have had a change of heart about Luke potentially being their head coach.
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[via NBCSports]
