New York Knicks: Five winningest head coaches in franchise history

3. Jeff Van Gundy: 248

Out went Riley, in came Jeff Van Gundy, who picked up where the hall of fame coach left off in the 1995-96 NBA season. Van Gundy had been an assistant coach for the New York Knicks the previous seven years.

Well, the pieces were partially left by Riley, but also Don Nelson. who coached the first 59 games of the 1995-96 season until his firing.

Van Gundy finished that year 13-10 and became the permanent coach of the Knicks. The success carried into the 1996-97 season when he had 57 wins. The ’90s Knicks started to dwindle from there, until a remarkable run as an eighth seed in the 1999 NBA playoffs to the NBA Finals, where his team was defeated by Gregg Popovich’s San Antonio Spurs, who won their first title.

Van Gundy won another 108 games over parts of the next three seasons, but expectations were always high in New York, and he left his post in the middle of the 2001-02 year.

After a one-year absence, Van Gundy returned to the sidelines to coach the Houston Rockets, featuring a team of Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady at one point. This only lasted four years, and Van Gundy’s final season had 52 wins, but a third first-round exit from the postseason resulted in his firing.

Van Gundy now resides on ABC and ESPN broadcasts of NBA games, and he has not coached another NBA team since. At 248-172, though, he is one of New York’s most winningest coaches ever.