Reports: The Knicks reached out to Dawn Staley about being their next head coach
“If I were them, I would have called her, too,” South Carolina athletic director Jeremiah Donati reportedly said.
Dawn Staley has built a legendary resumé coaching at Temple and South Carolina, and her sustained success in women’s college basketball has again captured the interest of the NBA.
According to On3 Sports, the New York Knicks have reached out to South Carolina about Staley, a North Philadelphia native, for their vacant coaching opening. The Knicks fired Tom Thibodeau on June 3, three days after they were eliminated in the Eastern Conference finals by the Indiana Pacers.
“If I were them, I would have called her, too,” South Carolina athletic director Jeremiah Donati told On3.
» READ MORE: Dawn Staley reiterates that she’d want an ownership stake in a potential WNBA team in Philly
This isn’t the first time in Staley’s coaching career that she’s been approached about an NBA job. In her book, Uncommon Favor: Basketball, North Philly, My Mother, and the Life Lessons I Learned From All Three, Staley says she was approached by the Portland Trail Blazers in 2021, and in a 2023 interview with Vanity Fair, she said the Washington Wizards had contacted her about their coaching opening. She declined the opportunity with Washington because she “didn’t want to be a ‘check the box.’”
“I didn’t because nowadays there are people out there that are trying to strengthen their candidate pool and, you know, they got to diversify the people that they’re speaking to,” Staley told Vanity Fair. “I don’t want to be a number. I don’t want to be a statistic. … Portland was pretty serious about it, and then everybody else — I don’t think it was that serious.”
The Knicks’ interest in Staley, a three-time national champion coach and five-time WNBA All-Star as a player, also comes at a time when her name is being mentioned alongside the newest WNBA expansion team coming to Philadelphia in 2030. It’s worth noting that in January, Staley signed a contract extension with South Carolina through 2030, which made her the highest paid college women’s basketball coach in the history of the sport.
While promoting her new book last month in Philly, Staley told the crowd that, “I don’t want to come back and coach, OK? I want ownership.” And she doubled down on those comments more recently on Kyle Kelce’s Not Gonna Lie podcast, when Kelce asked if Staley would coach a Philly WNBA team.
“No,” Staley said. “No. You know why? Because I’d rather be an owner. I think there’s much more in it to ownership. I know a lot of people think that coaching is my best attribute. And I do think I’m a pretty good coach. But when I’m an owner, I could probably touch more people.”