Mike Woodson is the only head coach to lead the Knicks to a winning record this century, but even he was shown the door after a little more than two seasons at the helm.
At least one of his former players still believes Woodson got a raw deal.
“I love him to death, he still should be the coach there in my opinion,” former Knicks guard Raymond Felton told KnicksFan TV recently, per SNY. “He’s like a coach, a father figure, all of the above for me.”
Felton joins Rasheed Wallace among the former Knicks who would like to see Woodson get another chance with the franchise. Woodson is reportedly among the candidates interviewing to become the next Knicks head coach despite being fired from the position after the 2013-14 season.
Woodson took over as the Knicks interim coach at the end of the 2011-12 season when Mike D’Antoni resigned and was given the job full-time later that offseason.
The next season, he led the Knicks to a 54-28 record and No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, but were ousted in the second round of the playoffs by the Indiana Pacers. The Knicks followed that up with a 37-45 season, missing the playoffs for the first time in four years and ultimately cost Woodson his job.
“That coaching staff was amazing,” said Felton, who played with the Knicks in 2010 under D’Antoni and from 2012-14 under Woodson. “Woody was great. He was a coach that understood. He gave us the freedom but at the same time, he let us know he was in charge. It got times where we had battles, at times we had our disagreements as players and coaches, but at the end of the day, we respected each other. And I think a lot of that is missing in the game nowadays where sometimes these young guys don’t respect their coaches and that’s not a good thing.”
Woodson spent 2014-18 as an assistant with the Los Angeles Clippers and has not held a head coaching job since his time with the Knicks.
Woodson is also not the only Knicks coaching candidate Felton has experience with. During the point guard’s first tenure in New York, Kenny Atkinson was an assistant on D’Antoni’s staff and worked closely with the guards.
“Kenny was a tough coach,” Felton said. “He’s one of those people who will get in front of you and he’ll try to guard you and he’ll run through the plays just as hard as players. … He would get on the floor and show you how to do it if he didn’t like it.”
Atkinson was most recently head coach of the Brooklyn Nets before he was unexpectedly ousted in March.
“He was a great guy, a great coach,” Felton added. “That fire he brought to the team, it was fun.”