{"id":151702,"date":"2025-07-23T06:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T10:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=151702"},"modified":"2025-07-23T06:49:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T10:49:12","slug":"knicks-to-interview-pablo-prigioni-for-assistant-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/07\/23\/knicks-to-interview-pablo-prigioni-for-assistant-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks To Interview Former Team Fan Favorite For Assistant Coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Knicks tried to get permission to speak with numerous current head coaches after they fired Tom Thibodeau. One of those was Minnesota Timberwolves head man, Chris Finch. Minnesota did not grant the Knicks the opportunity to speak with him (neither did the other teams where NY wanted to speak to their head coach about their opening). The Knicks also interviewed Minnesota\u2019s lead assistant, Micah Nori, for their head coaching position. Once again, they have gone to the Timberwolves for permission to speak to yet another one of their coaches, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/p\/prigipa01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pablo Prigioni<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_151713\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-151713\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-151713\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/USATSI_19293950_168414264_lowres-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/USATSI_19293950_168414264_lowres-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/USATSI_19293950_168414264_lowres-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/USATSI_19293950_168414264_lowres-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/USATSI_19293950_168414264_lowres-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/USATSI_19293950_168414264_lowres-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/USATSI_19293950_168414264_lowres-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/USATSI_19293950_168414264_lowres.jpg 1977w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-151713\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oct 24, 2022; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert (27) and assistant coach Pablo Prigioni talk before the game against the San Antonio Spurs at Target Center. Mandatory Credit: Matt Krohn-USA TODAY Sports<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Knicks To Interview Former Team Fan Favorite For Assistant Coach<\/h2>\n<h3>Pablo Prigioni Set To Interview With Knicks To Become An Assistant<\/h3>\n<p>The Knicks, of course, have since filled their head coaching vacancy. They have <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/07\/08\/3-improvements-mike-brown-maximize-knicks\/\" target=\"_self\">hired Mike Brown<\/a>, former head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Lakers, and Sacramento Kings. With high expectations for the upcoming season, New York and Brown are looking to fill the rest of his staff.<\/p>\n<p>As per Ian Begley of SNY, the Knicks have asked the Timberwolves for permission to talk to Pablo Prigioni about joining Brown\u2019s assistant coaching ranks. Unlike with Finch (and many others), they have been told that they are allowed to do so.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Knicks asked for and received permission to speak with MIN assistant Pablo Prigioni for openings on Mike Brown\u2019s staff. Prigioni, a key player on 2012-13 Knicks, is heavily involved in MIN\u2019s offense under Chris Finch: <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/b1YmL06wej\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/b1YmL06wej<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ian Begley (@IanBegley) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IanBegley\/status\/1947718479693455613?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 22, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Now 48 years old, Prigioni has been an assistant coach with the Timberwolves for the last six seasons. He has been tasked to be an offensive coach for Minnesota. The Argentinian has not only been a part of Finch\u2019s staff during his entire head coaching tenure, Prigioni also was an assistant under Ryan Saunders.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to that, Prigioni spent a brief time as an assistant coach with the Brooklyn Nets.<\/p>\n<h3>Former Player For The Team<\/h3>\n<p>Knicks fans are certain familiar with Prigioni. That\u2019s because he used to play for the Knicks. His NBA debut came during the 2012-13 season when he was already 35 years old (turned 36 towards the end of that season).<\/p>\n<p>That year, New York had a rather successful team. They finished 54-28, good for the second-best record in the Eastern Conference. That year, Prigioni started 28 games during the regular season and 10 of his 11 postseason appearances. He was a solid three-point shooter (albeit on low volume) and a pesky defender. The 6-foot-3 point guard became known for sneaking up on players in the backcourt and stealing inbounds passes.<\/p>\n<p>Prigioni would go on to appear in another 66 games, making 27 starts in 2013-14. After playing in 43 contests for New York in 2014-15, he was traded to the Houston Rockets in February of 2015. Affectionately called \u2018Priggy Smalls\u2019 by the Knicks faithful, he connected on 41.4% of his three-point tries while with New York. His last NBA season as a player came in 2015-16 with the Los Angeles Clippers.<\/p>\n<p>Now, a little more than a decade later, Prigioni may once again be employed by the New York Knicks. Being he has been working with the Timberwolves, \u2018Priggy Smalls\u2019 has history with <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/t\/townska01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: \u00a9 Brad Penner-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Knicks tried to get permission to speak with numerous current head coaches after they fired Tom Thibodeau. One of those was Minnesota Timberwolves head man, Chris Finch. Minnesota did not grant the Knicks the opportunity to speak with him (neither did the other teams where NY wanted to speak to their head [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":151712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,12,3],"tags":[3717,2276],"class_list":["post-151702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-knicks","category-news","tag-mike-brown","tag-pablo-prigioni"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151702"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151725,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151702\/revisions\/151725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}