{"id":744982,"date":"2026-06-18T18:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T18:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/744982\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T18:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T18:05:11","slug":"new-nba-rumors-on-knicks-coach-linked-to-blazers-hc-search-after-finals-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/744982\/","title":{"rendered":"New NBA Rumors on Knicks Coach Linked to Blazers’ HC Search After Finals Run"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the Portland Trail Blazers’ coaching search is down to the finalist stage, another name could be entering the fray.<\/p>\n

The Rose Garden Report’s Sean Highkin<\/a> and The Stein Line’s Jake Fischer<\/a> reported the Blazers are showing interest in New York Knicks assistant Chris Jent.<\/p>\n

With Tiago Splitter opting to take<\/a> the Chicago Bulls’ job, Minnesota Timberwolves assistant Micah Nori and Boston Celtics assistant Tyler Lashbrook became the two names on the board for Portland.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t appear that Jent was seriously on the Blazers’ radar until now. Sure, the Knicks were in the midst of a championship run, but assistants employed with playoff teams aren’t precluded from exploring outside opportunities.<\/p>\n

Getting this far into the process and considering another candidate would add to a search that has diverged from the norm<\/a> a bit.<\/p>\n

Jent has made a number of stops across his coaching career but has yet to get the top job aside from a stop with the Bakersfield Jam in the old NBA D-League. The 56-year-old first made a real name for himself when he helped develop<\/a> LeBron James’ game while on the Cleveland Cavaliers’ bench.<\/p>\n

Basking in the Knicks’ Finals win, New York coach Mike Brown made sure to shout out Jent and said he merited consideration for a promotion elsewhere:<\/p>\n

Barring an unforeseen turn, only two vacancies remain in the NBA coaching carousel. Along with the Blazers, the Dallas Mavericks are looking for a replacement for Jason Kidd after he got the boot in May.<\/p>\n

If Jent can’t sufficiently impress Portland \u2014 he has some serious ground to make up \u2014 he could be headed for another season in a lead assistant role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Portland Trail Blazers’ coaching search is down to the finalist stage, another name could be entering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-744982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}