MoxVib

Sure, New York Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau is reportedly in discussions with the team about a contract extension. Should those talks fall through, there will be one name on everyone’s minds as a ready-made replacement — because Jay Wright is available.

The former Villanova coach would certainly be familiar with the roster, especially after Tuesday night’s trade that sent ex-Wildcat Mikal Bridges from the Brooklyn Nets to the Knicks for a haul of draft picks and forward Bojan Bogdanovic.

Bridges will rejoin college teammates Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo, with whom he won a national championship at Villanova under Wright.

“Boys are blessed to be together,” Wright wrote on X in response to the trade. “No one ever gets this opportunity in the @NBA. A lot of work to do!! Let’s go!!”

Such a robust reunion is unusual in the NBA, where it’s uncommon for so many players from the same college team to play together as professionals.

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The 1997-98 Boston Celtics provide a close comparison.

That team featured Antoine Walker, Ron Mercer and Walter McCarty, members of the 1995-96 Kentucky squad that won a national title under Rick Pitino, who was named the Celtics’ coach that May. In March 1998, partway through the next NBA season, the team signed former Wildcats forward Reggie Hanson to a pair of 10-day contracts to replace injured forward Bruce Bowen. That gave Boston four Wildcats — plus their former coach, though Hanson preceded the other three by several years at Kentucky.

“It was actually funny because we had Ron Mercer, Walter McCarty and Antoine, and they had all just left Kentucky looking for a different space and they walked right back into the same space,” former Celtics teammate Dana Barros told the Athletic in 2020. “So we clowned them all the time. They would get on the bus and be like, ‘Man, I can’t believe I left college and I’m right back here with the same s---.’ So it was actually a pretty good theme that we kept going for a while when those guys were there.”

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The Celtics teams of that era appeared to have a thing for ex-Kentucky players. In 1999, Mercer was traded to the Denver Nuggets, but Boston signed former Wildcats guard Wayne Turner as an undrafted rookie for one season. Two years later, after Pitino, Mercer and Turner had departed, the Celtics added guard Tony Delk. Walker, McCarty, Delk, Turner and Mercer played on Kentucky’s 1996 championship team.

Another comp: The 1979-80 Milwaukee Bucks’ roster included Marques Johnson, Dave Meyers and Richard Washington, winners of the 1975 national championship at UCLA.

More recently, the NBA has seen teams collect talent from the same school, though those players’ college careers may not have overlapped.

The 2015-16 Phoenix Suns’ roster included four Kentucky Wildcats in Devin Booker, Brandon Knight, Eric Bledsoe and Archie Goodwin, though they were not teammates in college. (Phoenix released Goodwin ahead of the following season, but that same year drafted guard Tyler Ulis, who played with Booker at Kentucky.)

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The 2018-19 Indiana Pacers had four players from UCLA. The New Orleans Pelicans in 2018-19 had four players from Kentucky. The following season, the Pelicans had five players from Duke, ranging from then-rookie sensation Zion Williamson to shooting guard JJ Redick, who was recently named coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. New York in 2020-21 had four players from the same school, though it favored Kentucky over Villanova then.

Most players from a single school on an NBA team, in the last 50 years:

5 — 2019-20 Pelicans (Duke)
5 — 2017-18 Pelicans (Kentucky)
4 — 2023- 24 Magic (Michigan)
4 — 2018-19 Pacers (UCLA)
4 — 2015-16 Suns (Kentucky)

With the acquisition of Mikal Bridges, the Knicks would tie… pic.twitter.com/iljHGgQ0qB

The Knicks began assembling their Villanova contingent in July 2022, when they signed Brunson. New York traded for Hart in February 2023 and signed DiVincenzo that July.

Hart led Villanova to a national championship alongside Bridges and the rest of that group during the 2015-16 season. All four returned the following season, but Villanova was knocked out in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Brunson, Bridges and DiVincenzo then led the Wildcats to the 2018 national title before declaring for the draft.

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After news of the Bridges deal broke late Tuesday, the former and now current teammates took to X, with Brunson tweeting “Omg,” and Hart sharing a screenshot with all four together on the same FaceTime call. Bridges wrote, “This is crazy.”

Six players from Villanova’s 2016 championship team have played in the NBA, and four now play for the Knicks. Former Wildcats forward Daniel Ochefu briefly played for the Washington Wizards and now plays overseas. And there is speculation that Ryan Arcidiacono, a starter on that team who was named the NCAA tournament’s most outstanding player, could return to New York after being traded from the Knicks in February.

If Ochefu and Arcidiacono are unavailable, perhaps the Knicks can track down the man whose buzzer-beater delivered the 2016 title.

What is Kris Jenkins up to right now?

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