The Knicks Want to Hire Phil Jackson; Nebraska's Littlest Bookie

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Today in sports: Baylor basketball coach Scott Drew is unloved by his peers, the Buffalo Bills have made Mario Williams one of the richest players in NFL history, and Daniel Snyder and Jerry Jones are mulling a lawsuit against the NFL.

New York Knicks owner/messer-upper James Dolan apparently would very much like to hire Phil Jackson to replace freshly-resigned head coach Mike D'Antoni. Jackson won nine NBA titles as coach of the Lakers and Bulls and played for the Knicks for 11 years, so hypothetically, he would be a perfect fit. But he's also 66-years-old, the proud owner of a prosthetic hip, and rich enough to be able to pick-and-choose when it comes to a possible return to the sideline. Plus, the Knicks have tried and failed to hire Jackson on two previous occasions. None of which means it can't happen this time. We're just saying Knick fans shouldn't get their hopes up. [New York Post]

Baylor University men's basketball Scott Drew is a bad man. Well not bad, per se: he's just disliked by his peers in the coaching fraternity because he's an aggressive recruiter and "a bench coach who can’t get out of his own way." Which you think would make the other coaches happy, but it doesn't. Nobody seems to want to go on the record about exactly it is they dislike about Drew, but apparently he's been known to tell recruits how many malls there are in Waco (two) and bring up Google Maps to show them the Branch Dividian Compound was not particularly close to campus. Yup, that Scott Drew sounds like a real monster.  [The Washington Post]

This is Max Kohll. Max is 11-years-old. Max lives in Omaha. Max thinks the North Carolina Tar Heels are going to win the NCAA basketball tournament this year. Max started an NCAA tournament pool at his school, charging peers five dollars to submit an entry. Max was fair in how he administered the rules -- half the pot went to the winner, with the second and third place finisher divvying up the rest of the pot -- but his principal objected. So, is Max the world's littlest bookie, or is his principal a March Madness-killing stick-in-the-mud? You decide. We have. (And please note, we don't use bookie in the pejorative: we admire Max's ingenuity. Many years ago, some of us were Max Kohlls of our fifth-grade classrooms, and you can bet we were keeping 25% of the take, as a handling fee.)   [Omaha World-Herald]

Former number one overall pick Mario Williams is the second NFL player in as many days to be given a contract with more than $50 million in guaranteed money, courtesy of the Buffalo Bills. Williams's contract reportedly has a maximum value of $100 million -- the most ever for a defensive player -- which is impressive, but still $32 million less than the new the Detroit Lions gave Calvin Johnson yesterday.  [Houston Chronicle]

If the NFL expected the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys to just accept being docked millions of dollars in salary cap space hours before the start of free agency without raising any objections, they might -- might -- have thought wrong. A source says club owners Daniel Snyder and Jerry Jones are "exploring all options for challenging the decision," which could mean a messy lawsuit is in the works. The problem with such an approach, as Pro Football Talk editor Mike Florio notes, is that by just filing a lawsuit, Snyder and Jones will basically be admitting that NFL teams colluded to fix salaries during the uncapped 2010 season. That could lead to a, hm, sticky situation during future labor negotiations with the NFL Players' Association. [PFT]

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