Living legend Larry Bird said his former Pacers point guard Mark Jackson would be a nice fit to coach the Knicks, but wasn’t the right fit in Indiana last year.
The Post reported Donnie Walsh wanted to interview Jackson last year, but Bird killed it. Jackson, the clear frontrunner for the Knicks’ vacancy, is expected to interview with Walsh this week, but a source close to Jax said it won’t be today.
“What happened last year, we were in the process of getting names down on a list and Mark made a statement he couldn’t work for two guys in control,” Bird told The Post yesterday. “Well, I was going to be there (with Donnie). So that eliminated him as we were compiling the list. It probably wasn’t the right thing to say. We would’ve interviewed him, but we both were going to be there and he didn’t want two bosses.”
Jackson stated in an e-mail, “I have no idea what comment he could be referring to.”Last year’s Jackson snub may have led Walsh to leave Indy. Bird coached Jackson for all three of his years as Indiana’s head coach after Walsh hired him with no prior head-coaching experience. Jackson led Bird’s Pacers to the 2000 Finals.
“I always thought he’d be a good coach and he helped me out tremendously,” Bird said. “When we had the lockout year, he kept guys together. He led the charge. He knew what was going on. He came over to me in the huddle and would tell me what play he thought we could run. Mark will be well-equipped to run an NBA team. I always knew he’d probably be a coach one day. (Walsh) won’t be afraid to pull the trigger on a guy with no experience.”
Walsh thinks so, too, but needs to hear it in the long-awaited interview. When asked if Jackson was the leading candidate in a conference call yesterday, Walsh was evasive.
“I guess you don’t know that until you sit down and the two of you talk together,” Walsh said. “Then you find out how far along you are as far as that description. I’ve spent time developing not so much a list but a small group of guys I would feel that way about. He’s certainly one of them.”
Walsh said there was only one time when he knew there was just one candidate – and that was when Bird blew him away in the interview.
“I thought he was tremendously prepared for it,” Walsh said. “He told me what he would do from the first day of training camp to The Finals of the NBA.”