Knicks Hire Billy Lange to oversee player development

[GONYK]

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[TheGreenArrow]

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[TheGreenArrow]

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This is a big get for us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He’s one of the best development coaches in college basketball!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Capn'O]

Is this a coaching role or front office? Sounds like the latter.

[thebuzzardman]

Is this a coaching role or front office? Sounds like the latter.

Hopefully coaching staff. I was asking for moar coaches.

[TheGreenArrow]

Is this a coaching role or front office? Sounds like the latter.

Hopefully coaching staff. I was asking for moar coaches.

From bondy….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

According to a source, Lange won’t be named as an assistant or occupy a seat on the bench as part of this role. The Knicks assistant staff is also filled with expected new hires/holdovers Chris Jent, Brendan O’Connor, Rick Brunson, Darren Erman, Mo Cheeks, TJ Saint and Jordan Brink, among others.

[thebuzzardman]

Is this a coaching role or front office? Sounds like the latter.

Hopefully coaching staff. I was asking for moar coaches.

From bondy….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

According to a source, Lange won’t be named as an assistant or occupy a seat on the bench as part of this role. The Knicks assistant staff is also filled with expected new hires/holdovers Chris Jent, Brendan O’Connor, Rick Brunson, Darren Erman, Mo Cheeks, TJ Saint and Jordan Brink, among others.

Damnation.

Still, glad to see them add another developmental guy

[TheGreenArrow]

Hopefully coaching staff. I was asking for moar coaches.

From bondy….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

According to a source, Lange won’t be named as an assistant or occupy a seat on the bench as part of this role. The Knicks assistant staff is also filled with expected new hires/holdovers Chris Jent, Brendan O’Connor, Rick Brunson, Darren Erman, Mo Cheeks, TJ Saint and Jordan Brink, among others.

Damnation.

Still, glad to see them add another developmental guy

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The nova boys really run the organization!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[JayTWill]

From bondy….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

According to a source, Lange won’t be named as an assistant or occupy a seat on the bench as part of this role. The Knicks assistant staff is also filled with expected new hires/holdovers Chris Jent, Brendan O’Connor, Rick Brunson, Darren Erman, Mo Cheeks, TJ Saint and Jordan Brink, among others.

Damnation.

Still, glad to see them add another developmental guy

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The nova boys really run the organization!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looks like his time at Nova may not have overlapped with our Nova guys but he did spend some time on the Sixers bench working with B** *******!!!!!!!!
Are you sure this is the guy you want helping to mold our young players?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[stuporman]

Wait..... he was part of player development during 'the process' in Philly? oh crap

[JayTWill]

I don't know anything about this guy or if he is any good but hopefully it improves the player development. They need some of these lower drafts picks or buy low guys to blossom with the limited assets the team has to improve the roster. Considering many of the players are on or approaching the other side of 30 I would love an injection of youth and energy into the rotation.

[WaltFrazier]

Some of the earlier assistant hires were labeled as player development guys. Is Lange the main guy in this area now? How many coaches does the GLeague team have?

[TheGreenArrow]

Damnation.

Still, glad to see them add another developmental guy

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=W09F6FrMDfp5_y1gKYgF1g

The nova boys really run the organization!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looks like his time at Nova may not have overlapped with our Nova guys but he did spend some time on the Sixers bench working with B** *******!!!!!!!!
Are you sure this is the guy you want helping to mold our young players?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Read on Twitter

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He recruited Jhart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Knick4Real]

I'm glad to see we finally have a lot of experienced voices on the bench and in the front office that can communicate and work well with each other. The "My way or the highway" days are done!

[Knicksfan1992]

So I'm an SJU alum who follows the Men's program pretty closely. I think I can offer somewhat of a nuanced take on this hire:

First off like one of the previously mentioned tweets Billy Lange has basically become public enemy number 1 over at Hawk Hill lol.

My two cents is he saw the writing on the wall. SJU hired an experienced head coach (Steve Donahue) as his lead assistant. We lost our best player to the portal this year and he hadn't made the tournament since he had been hired. Likely a rebuilding year and he only had 2 years left on his deal. He was likely getting the boot after this season.

That's all understandable but what really irks the fanbase is the timing of this... Kids are already back on campus. Hoops team is probably in the middle of a training camp of some sort and you up and leave now?!? That's the problem I have with a move like this...

He wasn't exactly a popular hire at the time as alumni/fans were pretty split over the firing of Martelli and subsequent debacle of a coaching search in which they ostricized Jameer Nelson so bad he sent his kid to George Washington instead of St. Joe's which would have been unfathomable to most people who followed SJU after the year 2000 lol.

I have some sympathy for Lange in this respect. It's not his fault he got offered a HC job and took it. The new AD tried to make a splash by firing Phil and getting her own guy in there and it just kind of backfired on her so hard. I don't think she fully understood how much the alumni respected Phil and Jameer. Jameer did interview for the job and said the right things publicly but, people in the know know it was a sham interview. They decided Lange was going to be the HC an hour after they interviewed Jameer.... He was never a serious candidate. It doesn't help that Lange's major coaching breakthroughs happened at Villanova either. Just a bad optics hire IMO.

He never really covered himself in glory as a coach either. Especially following a legend in Martelli. Martelli wasn't perfect and he definitely had some really down periods post the crazy 2002-04 squads but, you always knew with Phil if he had enough talent he could guide a team to a NCAA tournament berth which should be the goal for SJU once every 2-4 years IMO.

Lange consistently underperformed his talent as a HC in mine and many other alumni's eyes. This past season being the most egregious example. Team was widely picked to be the best or 2nd best team in the A-10. They had a surefire NBA player in Rasheer Fleming. Borderline NBA player in Erik Reynolds and Xzayvier Brown will get a look professionally in a year or 2 IMO. That's a lot of talent for a mid major program. They finished 5th... This is the story of Billy Lange's tenure and i'm shocked he lasted as long as he did.

He's not exactly going to be missed. He was a pretty awful in game HC. He seemingly never prioritized having a great defense and weirdly last year we had a good defense but an underachieving offense. His offense was very dependent on chucking a ton of 3's and 1 on 1 guard play to generate them. It was very basic and easy to guard IMO.

With all those negatives being said, I think this is a decent hire for the Knicks for a few reasons:

A) He has a prior relationship with all the Nova guys on the team.
B) For all the faults I mentioned earlier Billy was a really good recruiter. Not only that, but also in the new landscape of college sports he was really good at retaining talent which, to me, speaks to his ability to build relationships and develop players. This sticks out even more given the fact that SJU really didn't have a ton of on court success while he was there.
C) The Sixers players respected him when he was their PD coach. Embiid regularly went to St. Joe's games.
D) Even though I'd say Lange's tenure was mostly a failure, I can't think of many instances where guys didn't get better over their career at SJU. I just don't think he's really cut out to be a HC so this role makes way more sense given what I perceived his strengths to be.