Adorned ladies’s basketball coach Daybreak Staley revealed the Knicks emphasised “inclusiveness with management and coaches” throughout their seek for a brand new head coach — but additionally instructed the group might not have totally thought of the potential fallout of hiring the NBA’s first feminine head coach after they interviewed her for the function.
“I felt the energy change after [I asked them] that,” the South Carolina Gamecocks head coach stated. “So I shot myself in the foot [interviewing for the job].”
Staley — a six-time WNBA All-Star and three-time NCAA champion — appeared on the Publish Strikes podcast with WNBA legend Candace Parker and star Aliyah Boston, the place she underscored her want to interrupt the barrier as the primary girl to develop into a full-time NBA head coach.
She was among the many candidates the Knicks interviewed after firing Tom Thibodeau following their Jap Convention Finals exit. The staff finally employed Mike Brown, a two-time NBA Coach of the 12 months and former Sacramento Kings head coach, to take the reins at Madison Sq. Backyard.
Staley shed new gentle on the Knicks’ interview course of.
“If the Knicks would have offered me the job, I would have had to do it. Not just for me, it’s for women. Just to break open that [door]. I would have had to [take the job]. It’s the New York Knicks, and I’m from Philly — but it’s the freaking New York Knicks,” Staley stated. “I believe I in all probability misplaced the job by asking this query — or: I had a sequence of questions that I requested them. One was: For who they had been in search of, for why was I within the candidate pool? If I used to be so enticing?
“I said, ‘Has the New York Knicks organization, in its history, ever had what you’re looking for?’ They wanted a team. They wanted inclusiveness with management, and the coaches and everyone. They wanted it to feel like a team, a closely-knit franchise. The answer was really ‘no [they never had this],’ but if you don’t hire anyone different, how are you going to get that? That was No. 1.”
The Knicks’ determination to rent Brown was, partially, pushed by his status for collaboration — a trait the entrance workplace felt had been missing beneath Thibodeau. Nonetheless, Staley raised thought-provoking questions throughout her interview which will have shifted the tenor of the dialog.
“My other question was if you hired me as the first female [head] coach in the NBA, how would it impact your daily job? Because it would — it would,” she stated. “You’re going to be requested questions that you simply don’t need to be requested in case you’re a male coach. There’s going to be the media and all this different stuff that it’s important to cope with that you simply didn’t need to cope with and also you don’t need to cope with once you rent a male.
“That really got them to thinking about, ‘Maybe she’s right.’”
Staley, 55, is the highest-paid coach in ladies’s school basketball, having signed a contract extension with South Carolina by way of the 2029–30 season. She led the Gamecocks to nationwide titles in 2017, 2022, and 2024, and alongside Becky Hammon, has lengthy been thought of among the many prime feminine candidates for a possible NBA breakthrough.
Hammon made historical past in 2020 when she grew to become the primary girl to function performing NBA head coach after Gregg Popovich’s ejection throughout a Spurs sport. She later left her put up as a San Antonio assistant to develop into head coach of the Las Vegas Aces, main the staff to back-to-back WNBA championships.
“My heart was saying it was time to go. This is where I am supposed to be right now,” Hammon informed The Related Press in 2022. “There have been lots of sleepless nights attending to this conclusion.
“Las Vegas sees me as a head coach now. The WNBA has called every year with job openings. … I’ve always said thank you, I’m very flattered, but stayed on this [NBA] path. This was the first time where I was like I’ll listen.”
