Mike Woodson Discusses Knicks Tenure, Carmelo Anthony Ahead of HC Interview

With a return to the New York Knicks potentially on the table, former head coach Mike Woodson discussed his run with the team.

Woodson came aboard as an assistant in 2011 and replaced Mike D'Antoni in March 2012. He coached 188 regular-season games—winning 109—for the Knicks before getting fired in April 2014.

SNY's Ian Begley and Danny Abriano reported June 4 that Woodson was among the candidates the Knicks will interview for their head coach vacancy.

"The bottom line is I'm happy as hell to get another opportunity to interview for this job," Woodson said in an interview with Begley. "I couldn't be happier. When I left there, I thought one day, hopefully, I'll get a shot at coming back. And this is the shot. I'm ecstatic."

Woodson said he was happy with how he performed during the first go-round. He is the last coach to guide the franchise to the playoffs (2012-13).

"I did my job when I was here," Woodson said. "We won games. The fan base was engaged. I walked out of the Garden many nights thinking that the fans were proud and excited about what we were doing. Am I capable of coming back to New York and helping them build a winning team again? I feel confident in that, I absolutely do."

Woodson also broke down how the Knicks came to play Carmelo Anthony at power forward, an approach that helped Anthony lead the league in scoring (28.7 points per game) in 2012-13:

"He might be a little bit smaller than a lot of the fours we'd play, so defensively we thought we could cover for him if we needed to. But he played his ass off on defense for us that year. And on the other end, there was not a four in the league that could cover Carmelo Anthony. Not one. And we knew that. So that's why the four was so powerful for him and our ballclub at that particular time. Melo thrived at the four. And we won a lot of games."

With the passage of time, the narrative about Woodson's stint might have changed. He wasn't an unmitigated success on the sideline, but none of his successors has done well. None of Derek Fisher (40 wins), Jeff Hornacek (60 wins) or David Fizdale (21 wins) lasted more than two seasons at the helm.

Woodson also deployed Anthony as a stretch 4 before the tactic became commonplace across the league. The results spoke for themselves. Anthony's two most efficient three-point shooting seasons came under Woodson (40.2 percent in 2013-14 and 37.9 percent in 2012-13).

Begley and Abriano reported Tom Thibodeau, Mike Miller and Kenny Atkinson were slated to get interviews with the Knicks as well. Of that group, Atkinson is arguably the optimal choice given how much the Brooklyn Nets' younger players developed under his watch.

The obvious question is whether enough has changed behind the scenes to set the franchise up for success.

The Knicks hired former player agent Leon Rose as their president in March, and they announced Wednesday the hiring of William Wesley as executive vice president, senior basketball adviser.

Perhaps that will be enough to get New York headed in the right direction. But plenty of fans will remain skeptical based on how the Knicks have operated with James Dolan as owner.