It seems like you can cross Brian Shaw's name off of the list of potential New York Knicks' coaching candidates.
Late last week, Knicks president Phil Jackson was said to be considering the possibility of making a run at Shaw to be the team's next coach. Now, it appears that the price to procure Shaw from the Denver Nuggets would be too high.
ESPN.com's Marc Stein and Ramona Shelburne reported the following on Sunday about Shaw:
The Knicks still have interest in Denver Nuggets coach Brian Shaw but do not currently plan to ask the Nuggets' permission to speak with him. Because league rules restrict teams to offering only cash or draft picks as compensation for coaches, and not players, sources say New York fears it likely can't meet the Nuggets' demands if it were to try to get Shaw out of his contract.
Jackson is a longtime Shaw fan who, sources say, would have had the Nuggets coach atop his wish list (along with Kerr) had Shaw been a coaching free agent this summer. But the Knicks' barren cache of draft picks would appear to snuff out any hope of extricating Shaw from the last two years of a three-year contract that averages roughly $2 million per season.
For what it's worth, Shaw told the Denver Post last week that he had no interest in the Knicks' job. But having Jackson speak with him directly may have changed his mind.
Sources told Stein and Shelburne that Jackson is a big fan of Shaw.
Shaw played for Jackson in Los Angeles and worked on his staff after retiring. He bolstered his coaching credentials even further with a strong run as an assistant with Indiana.
If Shaw didn’t take the gig with the Nuggets last summer, sources told Stein and Shelburne that Shaw would have been at the top of the Zen Master’s list for the Knicks’ opening -- conceivably above Kerr.
It’s unclear what it would take to pry Shaw from Denver. The Knicks already are forfeiting their 2014 first-round pick to Denver in the Carmelo Anthony trade. The next pick they can offer is their 2018 first-round pick.
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