James Borrego will not be New York Knicks coach Mike Brown’s lead assistant, as first reported by SNY on Wednesday. Borrego was a finalist for the head-coaching gig that went to Brown, and New York was interested in hiring him as associate head coach, but he will stay with the New Orleans Pelicans next season. Borrego has been New Orleans’ associate head coach under Willie Green for the past two years.
Borrego is under contract with the Pelicans. Before the Knicks pursued him, the Denver Nuggets saw him as a candidate to be David Adelman’s lead assistant, but New Orleans saw it as a lateral move and denied them permission to interview him, according to Marc Stein. Last season, however, David Griffin, then the Pelicans’ top executive, wanted to fire Green and promote Borrego to head coach, and owner Gayle Benson would not sign off on the plan, per Stein.
It makes sense that New York wanted to pair Brown and Borrego. A year before Brown turned the Sacramento Kings into the NBA’s most efficient offensive team, Borrego had the 2021-22 Charlotte Hornets playing a fast-paced, unpredictable, pass-happy style that produced the league’s sixth-best non-garbage-time offense, per Cleaning The Glass. Those Hornets, led by a second-year LaMelo Ball, had some offensive talent, but nowhere on the roster was there a scorer in Jalen Brunson’s stratosphere or a big man half as skilled as Karl-Anthony Towns. In theory, Borrego could have helped Brown relieve some of the pressure on Brunson and generate easier looks.
Since Borrego is not an option, New York will need to look elsewhere for a lead assistant. I suppose the Knicks can add him to the long list of coaches whose pesky contracts got in the way of a potential partnership this summer. It’s not yet clear what Brown’s staff will look like, but the New York Post reported that the Knicks plan to hire an associate head coach and that Rick Brunson, the lead assistant on Tom Thibodeau’s staff (and the franchise player’s father), will return in a lesser role.
