When the New York Knicks won the 2026 NBA Championship, they inherently accepted one of the bittersweet realities of winning: each of their 29 rivals would look to poach some part, or even several parts, of the organizational ecosystem that helped deliver the league's most recent title to the Big Apple.
While New York doesn't seem to have suffered from that intense of a brain-drain, several assistant coaches — like challenge guru Jordan Brink, now a Chicago Bulls assistant — are beginning their journeys on new staffs. The Knicks won't be entirely without a master of challenge-related ceremonies, though.
The New York Post's Stefan Bondy reported on Monday that the team had hired New Orleans Pelicans assistant Ed Flynn to replace Brink. Flynn was the Pelicans' Head Video Coordinator last season, making him a natural fit for the position on the Knicks' bench. The responsibility proved to have fate-altering implications in the 2026 NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs, proving no margin is too small for New York to dominate.
NBA's era of optimization means having "challenge gurus" on staff
In this era of the NBA, organizations, coaching staffs, and players have access to more data than ever before about the basketball they — and their opponents — are playing on a nightly basis.
That's made having strong decision-making ball handlers all the more important, with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Brunson proving over the past two seasons that a trustworthy (and decisive) operator is potentially the most important part of a championship-level team.
When it comes to coaching staffs, and their responsibilities, they've grown larger with time in each major sport. As leagues have grown, they've been able to identify areas for improvement, coaches that can help them make those improvements, and more ways to optimize their overall approach.
The league adopting coach's challenges full-time six years ago created the opportunity on each bench for a coach in charge of managing teams' limited amount of proverbial flags to throw. That's how you wind up with storylines like this to follow in the wake of a successful playoff run.
"Ed Flynn has joined the Knicks staff and will monitor the IPad to recommend challenges to Mike Brown, The Post has learned," Bondy wrote on Monday.
Brink's crowning achievement as a Knicks assistant was the key overturn in Game 2 of the NBA Finals that sent OG Anunoby to the free throw line (and helped New York take a 2-0 lead on the road).
The best-case scenario for the team is that they don't have to use their coach's challenges in key moments, because the officials got it right. The challenges exist for a reason, though, and Flynn might just get an opportunity of his own to swing a big game.
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