Wednesday Bolts – 2.10.16

Ian Begley of ESPN.com: “Coaches such as Tom Thibodeau, Mark Jackson, Jeff Van Gundy, Jeff

Hornacek, David Blatt and Scott Brooks are available. None of these coaches are triangle disciples, but they’ve all had success in the NBA. And each would present an interesting candidacy for the Knicks’ opening. Brooks is a name to think about, for one reason: The Knicks have been informed that their chances of landing Kevin Durant this summer would be influenced by hiring Brooks, according to league sources.”

James Herbert of CBSSports.com:  “It’s interesting that Oklahoma City went a different way. Rather than play it safe with Brooks, the Thunder replaced him with Billy Donovan and bet on him improving the team in Durant’s contract year. You could call that a risky move and criticize the job Donovan has done so far, but in general that’s the right sort of thinking. If you’re a general manager and you believe you’ve found the right person, hire him. That confidence usually looks good. Desperation doesn’t.”

Local TV ratings are way up, and the Thunder are in the top five.

Tim Bontemps of the WaPo on Marc Gasol: “And that is the other thing that the Gasol injury does: It reinforces the inevitable closing of this wonderfully fun era of Grit ‘N’ Grind basketball in Memphis. This team was a fringe title contender for the past several seasons, and a delightful one at that. The Grizzlies have had a colorful cast of characters – from their Gasol and Mike Conley, quietly their best players, to boisterous defensive ace Tony Allen, to their happy bruising forward in Randolph – and have played a throwback style featuring two bigs in Gasol and Randolph that would have been commonplace 20 or 25 years ago but sticks out like a sore thumb these days.”

Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical: “The Knicks have a real chance to sell Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook in 2017 – New York and Porzingis have his attention, yes – and Jackson ought to start constructing an elite coaching staff to begin that process with Westbrook and with free agents beyond him.”

Erik Horne on J.P. Tokoto: “Andre Roberson would be Tokoto’s best comparison: A 6-6, 6-7 guard/forward capable of defending multiple positions with long arms, lateral quickness, and who gets a majority of his points on layups and dunks. Also like Roberson: Tokoto’s long-range shooting still needs work. He’s shooting 26.7 percent on 3-pointers. He models his game after Vince Carter, another athletic marvel out of UNC who had to develop his perimeter shooting in the pros.”