Basketball Insider Lays Out Chances of Jay Wright Coaching the Nova Knicks

Jay Wright might be enjoying his post-coaching career a bit too much to take on one of the toughest jobs in sports.
Jay Wright celebrates alongside Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson after winning the 2018 NCAA national championship.
Jay Wright celebrates alongside Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson after winning the 2018 NCAA national championship. / Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

The New York Knicks fired head coach Tom Thibodeau on Tuesday after five seasons at the helm of the franchise.

The news came as a shock, as the Knicks had just concluded their best season in decades, reaching the Eastern Conference finals and coming within a few plays of possibly competing for a championship.

With Thibodeau out, the immediate question became who will be the next candidate to take on the Knicks head coaching job, and one of the early guesses for many was former Villanova head coach Jay Wright.

With former Wildcats Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Mikal Bridges all currently on the Knicks roster, and Wright constantly seen as one of the top coaches in men’s basketball during his career at Villanova, the pieces fit pretty perfectly in place. Why not celebrate with a reunion in the NBA?

But according to one of Wright’s current coworkers, the dream pairing is not likely to come to fruition. Seth Davis, who has been on the CBS desk alongside Wright during the past few NCAA tournaments, made clear that he doesn’t think Wright is heading back to coaching.

“I have been working with Jay Wright on TV for three years,” Davis wrote in a social media post on Tuesday. “Based on every conversation we have had I would say there is a greater chance that I will be the next Knicks coach than him. The difference is if they call me I will say yes.”

While Davis sounds pretty confident in his prediction, the only thing that’s going to stop some fans from dreaming of Wright landing the job will be someone else getting hired.


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Tyler Lauletta
TYLER LAULETTA

Tyler Lauletta is a staff writer for the Breaking and Trending News Team/team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI, he covered sports for nearly a decade at Business Insider, and helped design and launch the OffBall newsletter. He is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, and remains an Eagles and Phillies sicko. When not watching or blogging about sports, Tyler can be found scratching his dog behind the ears.