A FAB FAVE
Source: Knicks set to interview Juwan Howard, 10th name on coach list
A Fab Five alumnus now makes it an even 10.
Yes, a league source confirmed, add a 10th name to the list of coaching candidates Knicks president Steve Mills and general manager Scott Perry will interview: Heat assistant Juwan Howard.
It is no surprise Perry would look at Howard, who is expected to interview Sunday. Perry has a special kinship toward Michigan products after having coached there and having grown up in the state. The Miami Herald and ESPN first reported the Howard intervew.
Howard is a two-time NBA champion who played 19 seasons at power forward after a college career as a member of Michigan’s renowned Fab Five.
Interestingly, Howard worked with another Knicks candidate, David Fizdale, in Miami when they were both Heat assistants for three seasons. Fizdale ranked the top 10 African-American assistant coaches who haven’t gotten their big break in an article for the website The Undefeated, which covers issues of diversity. Howard was on Fizdale’s list.
“You’re talking about a first-class professional as a leader, the way he will represent himself in the organization and the way he treats people,’’ Fizdale said. “He is built to be a head coach that way. You add the absolute DNA of winning and success on and off the court and the Heat culture and his ability to communicate, he is definitely a guy who should be looked at and considered.”
Perhaps Howard would go to New York as an assistant if Fizdale is the Knicks’ choice. Fizdale, who was fired in November as the Grizzlies’ head coach, may have trouble immediately filling out a staff because Memphis interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff has been hired as the permanent coach, meaning Fizdale’s former assistants could stay there.
According to a source, Fizdale interviewed with the Hawks on Saturday and is being hotly pursued.
Mills and Perry weren’t kidding when, at their April 12 press conference, they said the search would be “open” and “thorough.’’
“By interviewing a lot of different people, they are following a process and trying to cover all their bases,’’ an NBA source familiar with the Knicks’ thinking said.