Warriors assistant Luke Walton has hired the Wasserman Media Group to represent him in negotiations, league sources tell Shams Charania of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports (Twitter link). Walton is reportedly a top candidate for the newly created Knicks vacancy, but the prospect of Walton ending up in New York is a long shot, tweets Monte Poole of CSNBayArea.com. See more from the defending champs amid the latest from around the Pacific Division:
- Warriors part-time player development consultant Steve Nash said he wouldn’t be closed to the possibility of working for the Suns in the future, but he’s not willing to become the team’s coach for now, calling the notion of the team’s apparent interest in him for its head coaching vacancy “a moot point at this point.” The two-time MVP made his comments on J.J. Redick‘s podcast for The Vertical on Yahoo Sports (audio link, scroll to 7:45 mark).
- Interim Suns coach Earl Watson told new assistant Bob Hill when Hill was Watson’s coach on the SuperSonics from 2006 to 2007 that he’d like to coach with him someday, and that longstanding desire brought Hill back into NBA coaching after a nine-year absence, as Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic details. Hill still has some bitterness toward Spurs coach/president Gregg Popovich about Popovich’s decision to remove him as head coach of the Spurs nearly 20 years ago, Coro also relays. “I guess I didn’t do good enough. I don’t know. He wanted to be the coach,” Hill said of Popovich. “And as soon as he had an opportunity to get rid of me, he did it. It’s too bad. The league’s like that sometimes. You’re going to run into people like that sometimes and that’s part of life. It was a great experience. I’m happy I had that. It hasn’t affected my coaching. I continued to coach and always will.”
- Kings GM Vlade Divac is only willing to make a trade if it’s a significant upgrade for the team, in spite of a report indicating that Sacramento is actively shopping many of its players, as Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee wrote today in a chat with readers.