The Knicks Fix

A statement was just released by the team:

"The New York Knicks have agreed in principle with Mike D'Antoni to become the next head coach of the team. A press conference will be scheduled upon the completion of the contract."

There is early word that a press conference could come as early as Monday -- there is only one playoff game that night (Boston at Cleveland) -- but nothing has been officially set as of yet.

The fact that the Knicks released a statement likely means D'Antoni officially resigned from the Suns, which had to take place before the Knicks could announce an agreement.

Four years at $24 million is the deal, which we were able to confirm. What's notable is that means next season the Knicks will be paying for three head coaches. Larry Brown should be in the fourth year of his five-year deal. Isiah Thomas is in the second year of his three-year extension. And now D'Antoni starts his four-year agreement.

Good to have money.

Have I said how much I admire and respect Cablevision as a company?

By the way...I owe myself this. Click here for the result of my prediction on the Michael Kay Show.

Mike D'Antoni is your new coach.

Discuss amongst yourselves. I'll blog after my responsibilities to the print side are completed.

L'Affaire D'Antoni has been like reading one of those choose-your-own-adventure books. You start with the fact that Mike D'Antoni has been given permission to talk with other teams....

Now, if you believe his destination will be Chicago, turn to Newsday, the Chicago Tribune and the Arizona Republic.

If you believe the Knicks are legitimately in play, turn to The New York Post, the Chicago Sun-Times and the East Valley Tribune.

And if you will believe anything someone tells you, go to ESPN.com.

Hey, like Buffalo Springfield said, Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.

Despite this reported anticipation of a "staggering offer" from the Knicks, D'Antoni is meeting with Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf this weekend, according to the Chicago Tribune.

This report backs up our story in today's Newsday which, according to a source, said that D'Antoni would be meeting a second time with the Bulls this weekend.

From the beginning this has been mainly about D'Antoni and the Bulls. They were the first to fly to Phoenix and talk to D'Antoni when the Suns gave him permission to speak with other teams. Donnie Walsh arrived the next day.

Walsh does have an interest in D'Antoni and, through people close to him, there is a sense that Walsh is confident that D'Antoni could be successful in New York. But is Walsh desperate to hire him?

He doesn't seem to be.

Not as desperate as the D'Antoni camp has in perpetuating the notion -- through the eager media -- that Walsh and the Knicks are holding a blank check to lure D'Antoni away from the Bulls, who are trying to be reasonable with their contract offer after regretting a long-term committment to Scott Skiles. As the Tribune reported, the idea that the Bulls won't pay because they still owe Skiles a ton of buyout money is factually incorrect.

Skiles is owed $3.5 million, but as per the agreement that number will be paid out over time. The Bulls will pay Skiles $1 million each in the next two seasons and then $750,000 each in the following two. That is hardly break-the-bank numbers for a wealthy team like the Bulls.

Bottom line, if they want D'Antoni, they can certainly match the remaining salary he has in Phoenix, which is $4 million this coming season and $4.5 million in 2009-10.

But if you represent D'Antoni and the New York market is involved with even mild interest, you wouldn't be a good agent if you didn't try to get your client more. The Bulls have no interest in getting into a bidding war with the Knicks.

And the Knicks have no interest in bidding against themselves, which is a refreshing change from the mindset of the previous regime.

More to come. Stay tuned . . . .

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Been making the radio rounds this week around the country -- we've been on in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Atlanta -- and on Friday we made our drivetime debut on the Michael Kay show on ESPN Radio. Go here for a listen.

And be sure you catch fellow Fixer Brandon Tierney's show from 7 - 10 p.m. weeknights on ESPN Radio.

Maybe Steve Nash knows something, or maybe he's freaking out over the idea of playing in a system other than Mike D'Antoni's free-wheeling, free-spirited system.

Reporters in Phoenix caught up with him at a charity appearance today and he addressed the speculation surrounding D'Antoni.

"This is the last thing I'm going to say about our coaching situation: Mike's my coach," Nash said. "So I expect to see Mike back here next year. And I know there's a lot of stuff going on right now, but Mike's my coach. I love playing for him. I expect to see him back in October."

No one benefitted more from D'Antoni than Nash, who arrived in Phoenix in 2004 and became a two-time MVP. The Suns went from a 29-win team the season before to a 62-20 finish in 2004-05. D'Antoni took over during the 2003-04 season, which saw all kinds of changes, including the blockbuster trade of Stephon Marbury to New York, which freed up cap space to sign Nash.

It is hard to believe D'Antoni can return to the Suns after all of this. Even if he doesn't take the Bulls offer and the Knicks decide not to go with him, D'Antoni will have other options later this summer with the uncertaintly in Atlanta. And the later this goes into the summer, the more pressure is put on the Suns to make a decision with a replacement coach -- not many options the longer they wait -- and then are forced to negotiate a buyout with D'Antoni. If they force him back to coach it would create a very strange and uneasy situation. But a contract is a contract.

Nash would obviously welcome that scenario, but you wonder if there is fallout to come with D'Antoni's departure. Would Nash seek a trade?

Stay tuned....

I have this wild and complicated scenario that, aside from obvious collusion, could be a plausible solution to the Mike D'Antoni situation.

Warning: This is pure speculation. But since everyone else is doing it -- and not being held accountable for it (i.e.: there was no "staggering offer" made by the Knicks and there was no meeting today between Donnie Walsh and D'Antoni's agent, Warren LeGarie, as was reported elsewhere) -- let us grab a handful of goo and throw it at the wall. If it sticks, we'll take all the credit.

If it doesn't, we'll just pretend we never said anything.

The scenario involves the Knicks, Phoenix Suns and Toronto Raptors. Now, Fixers, stay with me here.

The Suns have refused to give D’Antoni permission to speak with the Raptors, for whom former Suns executive Bryan Colangelo is the general manager. Suns managing partner Robert Sarver doesn't want to see Colangelo reunite with his buddy Mike D.

But that doesn't necessarily mean D'Antoni can't wind up in Toronto. D’Antoni could quit if he had assurances via backchannels (i.e. his buddy) that Toronto would give him the job.

But Colangelo would first have to get Donnie Walsh to give assurances that he would hire Sam Mitchell, a Walsh favorite, who then would have to quit in Toronto before D’Antoni was hired.

Round and round she goes....

In this scenario the Suns get out of paying D’Antoni the $8.5 million left on his contract and the Raptors get out of paying Mitchell the final three years of the extension he was given last summer.

And the Knicks get an experienced candidate who fits more of the mold Walsh is looking to set for the franchise.

Or, of course, Walsh could just give D'Antoni a boatload of money. Or give the job to Mark Jackson and put an end to all of this.

For those who are wondering about Avery Johnson, I heard today that he might just take the $11 mil coming to him from Dallas and sit out a while until the best opportunity opens for him. It suggests even he believes New York is not a good fit for him.

Stay tuned....

Depending on what report you read in each respective market -- and each market has its own conflicting reports -- the Knicks are either hotly after Mike D'Antoni or being used as leverage to get D'Antoni's only legitimate option, the Chicago Bulls, to ante up.

Then comes another late-night report by ESPN.com, which said the Knicks are preparing a "staggering" offer to D'Antoni to make him their next coach.

Staggering? While they are laying out $18.5 million to Larry Brown, who, technically, would still be the coach? While they are still paying $18 million to Isiah Thomas, who, technically, still has a job in the organization?

They just print money out there in Woodbury, don't they?

But we know how much Garden chairman James Dolan loves big names and, even if he personally likes Mark Jackson, Dolan knows D'Antoni is a marquee name and knows D'Antoni plays a very entertaining style. Never mind the idea that the current Knicks roster doesn't fit the style...and we've already seen the result of an easygoing coach who doesn't practice a lot and leaves it up to his players to police themselves.

Ugh.

Perhaps Donnie Walsh has full autonomy over the Knicks, but the final decisions still have to be OK'd by Dolan.

And Warren LeGarie is a smart agent. He knows he has the attention of the media, which is hungry for morsels as this story continues to develop. He knows he has the attention of the New York market and that he can use the involvement of Dolan's money as a wild card to his advantage, whether it is serious or not. Agents do what's best for their clients, so you can't expect full disclosure, nor candor.

Bottom line, what kind of negotiations can you have when there's only one team in the competition? D'Antoni will have to walk away from $8.5 million in Phoenix to take another job. You want to make that money back somehow. The Knicks throw money at everyone with a big name, that's the history. And as long as there is an opening in New York, D'Antoni has to be considered a serious candidate, regardless of how poorly his style fits with the current roster.

You have to expect Walsh wants to name his coach sometime before the end of May, preferably before the Pre-Draft camp in Orlando after Memorial Day weekend. Teams are allowed to bring in potential draft picks after the Pre-Draft camp, so you would want your coach in on those workouts.

Walsh also may still be waiting on the opportunity to talk with Celtics associate coach Tom Thibodeau.

And, when all is said and done, I am still of the belief that Walsh's instinct tells him Jackson is the right man for this job, which doesn't mean Jackson is the best candidate available. The Knicks job is very specific and can not be treated as if it is the same as coaching in Milwaukee or Memphis or even Chicago. There are peripheral issues the coach has to be able to handle, including the media intensity (which is why I can't take Avery Johnson seriously for this job...but can see him in Atlanta).

But aside from the need for thick skin is a need for someone who can get this franchise through what will be some challenging seasons in the next two years as Walsh attempts to get this team's payroll to a more manageable number.

And, let's be honest, under the cap by 2010? The more you research the numbers, as some of you Fixers have, the more it seems unlikely the Knicks can be in position to be a player for LeBron, et al - unless you do a slash and burn.

As always, stay tuned.

As we expected, Mike D'Antoni prefers the Chicago Bulls over the Knicks, according to a report in Newsday's parent newspaper, the Chicago Tribune.

KC Johnson says sources told him that D'Antoni expressed to Bulls executive John Paxson an interest in coming to Chicago to coach the Bulls, who, as we've written here (and has been written everywhere else), have a roster that best fits D'Antoni's uptempo system. D'Antoni and Paxson met Sunday night in Phoenix.

We reported in today's Newsday that Donnie Walsh flew out to Phoenix on Monday to meet with D'Antoni. Walsh went with the intention of interviewing one of the most accomplished coaches available, but there was little doubt that D'Antoni would have a greater interest in coaching the Bulls and that Walsh would prefer a more disciplined, defensive-minded coach.

I talked to a team executive from the West who said Walsh has often debated style philosophies with other team executives around the league over the years.

"He has had numerous philosophical conversations regarding the new Suns style versus the classic style -- the Heat with Riley and the Spurs and Boston," the executive said. "We usually ended up in the same place: the classic-style teams seem to be sizing for rings."

So if you remove D'Antoni from the equation, that brings us back to Avery Johnson and Mark Jackson.

Walsh is meeting with Johnson this week, perhaps as soon as today. We may be finally in the homestretch.