Dawn Staley confirmed she had a formal interview with the New York Knicks for their head coaching position and would have accepted the job had it been offered. Staley impressed during her conversation with Leon Rose and other members of the Knicks’ front office, but she was not considered a finalist.
“If the Knicks would have offered me the job, I would have had to do it,” Staley said. “It’s not just for me, it’s for women, for … to break open that. It’s the New York Knicks, and I’m from Philly, but it’s the freakin’ New York Knicks.”
The Knicks eventually hired Mike Brown for the job.
Staley entered the interview with questions of her own about the potential opportunity to become the NBA’s first woman head coach.
“Would I take any NBA job? No,” Staley said. “I will say this: The NBA has to be ready for a female head coach. You can’t just interview somebody and say, ‘We’re going to hire her.’ I probably lost the job by asking this question.”
“Well, I had a series of questions that I asked them,” she continued. “No. 1 was: Why was I in the candidate pool? I said, ‘Has the New York Knicks organization, in its history, ever had what you’re looking for? They wanted a team. They wanted inclusiveness with management, coaches and everyone. They wanted it to feel like a closely-knit franchise. The answer was really ‘no.’ If you don’t hire anyone different, how are you going to get that? That was No. 1.
“My other question was, ‘If you hired me as the first female coach, how would it impact your daily job?’ Because it would. It would. You’re going to get questions that you don’t have to be asked if you hire a male coach. There’s going to be the media, all this stuff you’ll have to deal with that you didn’t have to deal with and don’t have to deal with when you hire a male. That got them to thinking. That really got them to thinking. ‘Maybe she’s right.’ I felt the energy change after that.”
Staley signed a contract extension with South Carolina in January that makes her the highest-paid coach in women’s basketball.
There are currently three women who serve as NBA assistant coaches: Jenny Boucek (Indiana Pacers), Brittni Dolandson (Atlanta Hawks) and Lindsey Harding (Los Angeles Lakers).