Kings To Interview Nate McMillan

MAY 5TH, 11:09am: The interview will take place today or Friday, tweets Candace Buckner of the Indianapolis Star.

MAY 2ND, 8:20am: McMillan will interview soon, tweets Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. The Pacers are out of the playoffs following Sunday’s Game 7 loss to the Raptors, and uncertainty surrounds the job status of Pacers head coach Frank Vogel.

APRIL 28TH, 10:04pm: The Kings have asked the Pacers for permission to interview assistant coach Nate McMillan for the head coaching job in Sacramento, sources tell Vincent Goodwill of CSN Chicago (Twitter link). Sacramento reportedly hopes to make a hire sometime next week, but Goodwill indicates the Kings are willing to wait until Indiana’s playoff run is over to conduct the interview. The Pacers face an elimination game Friday against the Raptors.

Sacramento isn’t alone in its admiration for the former SuperSonics and Trail Blazers head coach, as Knicks team president Phil Jackson respects his “hard edge,” according to Marc Berman of the New York Post. It nonetheless doesn’t appear as though McMillan is a candidate for the Knicks job or any vacancy other than Sacramento’s at this point. Marc Stein of ESPN.com first identified the 51-year-old McMillan among those in the mix for the Kings opening.

McMillan is 478-452 in parts of a dozen seasons as an NBA head coach, with a 14-20 playoff record. He was last a head man for Portland, which fired him in March 2012.

The Kings have the NBA’s most well-populated list of reported candidates. They’ve interviewed Sam Mitchell, Vinny Del Negro and Mike Woodson and would like to do so with Luke Walton, Kevin McHale and Jeff Hornacek, according to various reports. Mark Jackson, Brian Shaw, Ettore Messina, Ime Udoka, Monty Williams, Jeff Van Gundy, Patrick Ewing, David Blatt, Jay Larranaga, Elston Turner and Henry Bibby are the other apparent candidates.