Hire Tom Thibodeau
- Thread starter htr10
- Start date
SI reporting that Thibs is 90% pct certain to be hired for the Knicks HC position. Can't remember such a high probability prediction so early in the process before the guy that does the hiring is even on board. I'd say that makes it credible since Rose and Thibs are friends, Thibs turn as President of an organization for the Twolves might also be something that Rose should want with him being an executive for an NBA team for the first time.
So true .. having Thibs become the Knicks head-coach will be a giant step forward toward the rebuilding a .500 Knicks team !!!
Thibs coaching-staff will also need a good offensive-coach to teach Project Knox & Barrett how to move without the ball, plus set decent picks for the PG to role off quick for a catch n shoot jumper, or slash to the basket for alley-oop (Like Pacers Olydipo used to do b4 injured, and Celtics young star Tatum does now). Having Thibs as head-coach could probably help Dolan in the off-season at getting a decent leadership player (CP3 or Westbrook or AD or Drummond or Etc.) from trade or FA market.
pat
Starter
Whom did he develop? The wolves stagnated under him, Rose was ready, once he entered the league and putting him out there 40+ minutes without a jumpshot and much too early cost him his prime as a serial champion and MVP. We can hire whomsoever as long as Dolan still owns the team, nothing is gonna change. He only is "hands-off" until he is not. And as long as the Knicks are making money, the league will not step in. I try to respect karma that's why my position is that our best shot is that Jimmy'll get bored eventually.
The Wolves were 29 - 53 the season before Thibodeau took over. In 2 seasons, he had them at 47 - 35. He got fired halfway through his 3rd season when they were 19 - 21. The guy who replaced him is 16 - 40 this season.
Thibodeau helped developed Yao Ming and Jimmy Butler. Rose became an MVP under him and is still a more productive player than anyone on our team. His teams were top 5 defensive teams for years.
Not sure what to tell Knicks fans. You want a college coach? You want to try another recently retired former PG?
mafra
Legend
Bulls were stacked... Rose, Noah, Boozer, Deng, Sefo... but he did draft and develop Jimmy Butler. If he can turn RJ into that it?ll be worth the hire.if he develops MRob?s post game... even better!
He had Minny in post season in first season and almost pulled off win but KAT choked.
He had Minny in post season in first season and almost pulled off win but KAT choked.
mafra
Legend
I go back to feeding ball off the chimney, or Rory Sparrow, for the corner swish. 40 years flushed away...
Article on Thibs and what might he do with the Knicks. Pretty sure he’s our guy which will thrill htr10.
[h=1]In his own words, what it would look like if Tom Thibodeau coached the Knicks
[/h]
By Mike Vorkunov Apr 20, 2020
27
At some point this year, the NBA will have an offseason and when that happens the Knicks will decide on a coach for next year. By most accounts, Tom Thibodeau, the former Bulls and Timberwolves head coach, seems to be a possibility for the job. For a coach with five 47-plus win seasons in eight years as a head coach, that has driven a lot of agita among Knicks fans.
Thibodeau’s resume is well-known around the NBA. He was the growling, grimacing, workaday coach of those hard-edged Bulls that never could quite get past the Heat, undone by injuries to Derrick Rose and the lack of their own Big 3. He took the Wolves to their first playoff appearance in — checks Basketball Reference, oof, yeah that’s a while — 14 years, before losing the job last season do to some combination of his poor work as an executive and as a casualty of Jimmy Butler’s scorched-earth exit out of Minnesota. Five coaching jobs, aside from Minnesota’s, opened last offseason and Thibodeau did not draw interest for any of them.
The Knicks will have their own decision to make this offseason. Thibodeau may just get the job. He is a long-time friend of Leon Rose, which would give the new team president a level of comfort and insight into who his next head coach will be during what could be a truncated or unusual coaching search. While Thibodeau is not universally beloved, his credentials are impressive. The ties are circumstantial at this point, but it’s also not that hard to envision it eventually happening.
If the Knicks do hire Thibodeau, they would be bringing in a coach with a bulldog approach to preparation and a history of coaching winning teams. He was a defensive mastermind in Chicago who won 60 games in his first season. They would also be hiring a coach with several important questions to his name. Chief among them is what kind of offense Thibodeau would run. To understand what a Thibodeau-coached Knicks team might look like, I went through the public record and statistics to see what history tells us.
While the past can provide an indication of what that might be, it can also be unfair. People change. Coaches adapt. The league trends another way. Thibodeau’s first season as a head coach was in 2010-11 when the league averaged 7.5 fewer possessions game. Teams shot 18 3s per game then; this season they averaged 33.9. He might be renewed after relaxing at his new Connecticut beach house.
Instead, Thibodeau can explain what he thinks a good offense is nowadays. He spoke about just that last month when he was a panelist at the Sloan Sports Conference. During a discussion on the proliferation of 3s in the NBA today, he mentioned that he said he thought it was important to prioritize the shots with the most expected value — layups, corner 3s and free throws — and then pivoted to what he believes is crucial for offenses.
“How are the playoffs being played?” Thibodeau said at Sloan. “If we went back and looked at the shot profile of Golden State, they were prolific shooting 3s because of Steph (Curry) and Klay (Thompson), but they also were very good at the pick-and-roll game, they were very good at catch and shoot, and they utilized the post-up for the split game which got them layups. So they had a wide variety. To win in the playoffs, you have to have that sort of balance.”
He added: “You also have to ask what will win in the playoffs. I think teams that put more of a premium now on not only having a center that will roll and put pressure on the rim, but also having one center that will open up and shoot a 3, it opens up driving lanes. We’re seeing the value of that with Russell (Westbrook) getting to the basket now today. To win in the playoffs when you’re playing someone in a seven-game series, you have to have a diversification to your offense.”
It was not exactly a full-throated acceptance of an offense heavy on 3-pointers. Instead, Thibodeau preached moderation, which is consistent with his approach as a head coach. His teams have never finished higher than 16th in the league in 3s per game.
Thibodeau’s offensive style matters, especially for the Knicks, who have been bogged down for too long by increasingly antiquated principles on that side of the ball. This season they are 29th in the league in 3s per game. They haven’t finished higher than 20th in the league in percentage of shots that are 3s since the 2013-14 season, according to Cleaning The Glass, and have finished in the top six in long mid-range jumpers for seven straight seasons. Not coincidentally, they have been a bottom 10 offensive team in all but one of the last six seasons (the outlier: 2016-17, when they finished 19th).
There is no franchise that needs modernizing more than the Knicks. An increase in 3s is not a clean solution and pathway to better offensive efficiency but it would help. This season, five of the top 10 offenses were also in the top 12 in 3s per game. The Mavericks and Rockets were top two in both. The Lakers and Nuggets were the only ones of those in the top 1o to be in the bottom 10 in 3s per game, which provides the Knicks another pathway to success if they can pair together one of the greatest players of all-time with another of the league’s top six players, or center their offense around one of the best passing bigs of all-time. Last season, five of the top 10 offenses were also in the top-11 in 3s.
(Scroll or swipe left to read the chart in full)
Tom Thibodeau’s Offenses
While Thibodeu has the reputation as a defensive coach, he has actually put together some strong offenses. Five of his teams finished with top 12 units in his eight seasons and he did pretty well in Minnesota. The Knicks could surely use some of that, even if they don't have any talents equivalent to Karl-Anthony Towns, Jimmy Butler, Derrick Rose or Joakim Noah at the moment (though they are still paying Noah).
There is the question of how the Bulls and Wolves put those offenses together. They weren't heavy on 3s. Thibodeau's teams have never finished in the top half of the league in 3s per game. His teams had a penchant for getting to the rim until his final season and a half in Minnesota. Thibodeau's teams finished only once in the top 10 in isolations plays run. They regularly play slow, pushing a pace slower than the league average in every one of his full seasons. And they love long mid-range jumpers.
He also has shown a willingness to bend to talent. Here is where his teams ranked in post-up frequency, via Synergy Sports during each of his eight seasons:
• 26th (CHI, 2010-11)
• 26th (CHI, 2011-12)
• seventh (CHI, 2012-13)
• seventh (CHI, 2013-14)
• 14th (CHI, 2014-15)
• second (MIN, 2016-17)
• fourth (MIN, 2017-18)
• third (MIN, 2018-19)
He eschewed post-up plays for his first two years in Chicago, when he had prime Derrick Rose hammering his way to the rim, and leaned on them more after Rose got hurt. The big surge in post-ups over his last few seasons was because he catered to Towns, who regularly was a league leader in those kinds of possessions.
"What I see in the playoffs is the transition usually gets taken away, then it becomes a pick-and-roll game," Thibodeau said at Sloan. "You have to have the ability to execute in the half-court. You have to be good in all phases of the game offensively and there has to be diversification."
If the Knicks hire Thibodeau, maybe they'll never quite join the 3-point revolution but they could still eventually run a top 1o offense. He has shown a willingness to change and adapt to the players he has. The bigger question then is if the Knicks can get him the offensive talent he needs. Thibodeau's Knicks might never be a high-paced, perimeter-oriented offense but he has shown he can get it to work.
There is the concern of how good his defense will be, though. While he is primarily remembered as a defense-first coach, the results were actually underwhelming. Here is where his teams ranked in defensive rating during his eight seasons as a head coach:
• first (CHI, 2010-11)
• first (CHI, 2011-12)
• sixth (CHI, 2012-13)
• second (CHI, 2013-14)
• 11th (CHI, 2014-15)
• 27th (MIN, 2016-17)
• 25th (MIN, 2017-18)
• 17th (MIN, 2018-19)
What worked early in his tenure in Chicago has not worked since. The defenses that gave up so few 3s with the Bulls started leaking them at high rates in Minnesota. If he gets a head coaching job for next season, it'll be important to see how and if he re-orients some of the defensive philosophies that made him so successful. To that end, it may actually be more important to know if Thibodeau can construct a great offense than if he can build a good defense.
Of course, one last question remains with Thibodeau and it's about the wear and tear he puts on his players. His reputation, more than anything else, is now tied to his willingness to play his stars heavy minutes. He has, fairly or unfairly, been stamped as a coach who grinds down his best players, which can be problematic during an era in which load management and body preservation is of the upmost importance. (In his last full season in Minnesota, three Wolves finished in the top 14 in minutes played on the way to the playoffs, and Butler finished third in minutes per game but missed 23 games due to an injury.) He was asked at Sloan how he would let data or analytics guide how many minutes he would allow his stars.
"Most teams are going to play their best players the most minutes," Thibodeau said last month. "If you went back even five years ago, you had your wings were all playing 38 minutes a game. Whether it was LeBron or Durant or Harden or Jimmy Butler. They all played around that. Now the number has gone down. The big thing was you didn't want your opponent to have their best player — because often times they're matched up positionally — so you wouldn't want to have your backup going against LeBron for five minutes because in five minutes that could be a 15-point swing. You're trying to win the game. That number has come down now, significantly. You still have guys that are playing (big minutes) ...
"The question — and it's a good one and it's a hard one — is rest vs. rust. A lot of teams now will rest guys about a month before the playoffs come to make sure they're completely healthy and then start building up their minutes so they have rhythm going in vs. giving them the rest at the end of the season so they try to get going and they can't find their rhythm. Thats always been an age-old question. Because you're collecting so much more data, I think you have to use it."
Thibodeau goes on to list the different ways to mitigate usage and load on his players. He suggested that it's possible to minimize wear on a star by subbing for them in practice or making them do player development in practice instead of a conventional session. Or he could do a walk-through before a game instead of a shootaround. He mentioned the importance of monitoring sleep but hard to measure.
What Thibodeau would do as a Knicks coach with that would be worth watching. David Fizdale raised red flags early on this season with his choice to play RJ Barrett long minutes, even in a blowout. The Knicks will continue to have young players who need proper development or could add stars at risk of injury or with a history of them and Thibodeau would be under the spotlight.
The pressure would then be on Rose to construct a team that could match Thibodeau's strengths. With the Timberwolves, he was keen on reuniting with his former Bulls players, bringing in Taj Gibson, Derrick Rose and Luol Deng. Gibson is already on the Knicks and has a team option for next season in his contract. What their first Knicks roster would look like, though, would be an interesting tell of how Thibodeau wants to play.
[h=1]In his own words, what it would look like if Tom Thibodeau coached the Knicks
[/h]
By Mike Vorkunov Apr 20, 2020
At some point this year, the NBA will have an offseason and when that happens the Knicks will decide on a coach for next year. By most accounts, Tom Thibodeau, the former Bulls and Timberwolves head coach, seems to be a possibility for the job. For a coach with five 47-plus win seasons in eight years as a head coach, that has driven a lot of agita among Knicks fans.
Thibodeau’s resume is well-known around the NBA. He was the growling, grimacing, workaday coach of those hard-edged Bulls that never could quite get past the Heat, undone by injuries to Derrick Rose and the lack of their own Big 3. He took the Wolves to their first playoff appearance in — checks Basketball Reference, oof, yeah that’s a while — 14 years, before losing the job last season do to some combination of his poor work as an executive and as a casualty of Jimmy Butler’s scorched-earth exit out of Minnesota. Five coaching jobs, aside from Minnesota’s, opened last offseason and Thibodeau did not draw interest for any of them.
The Knicks will have their own decision to make this offseason. Thibodeau may just get the job. He is a long-time friend of Leon Rose, which would give the new team president a level of comfort and insight into who his next head coach will be during what could be a truncated or unusual coaching search. While Thibodeau is not universally beloved, his credentials are impressive. The ties are circumstantial at this point, but it’s also not that hard to envision it eventually happening.
If the Knicks do hire Thibodeau, they would be bringing in a coach with a bulldog approach to preparation and a history of coaching winning teams. He was a defensive mastermind in Chicago who won 60 games in his first season. They would also be hiring a coach with several important questions to his name. Chief among them is what kind of offense Thibodeau would run. To understand what a Thibodeau-coached Knicks team might look like, I went through the public record and statistics to see what history tells us.
While the past can provide an indication of what that might be, it can also be unfair. People change. Coaches adapt. The league trends another way. Thibodeau’s first season as a head coach was in 2010-11 when the league averaged 7.5 fewer possessions game. Teams shot 18 3s per game then; this season they averaged 33.9. He might be renewed after relaxing at his new Connecticut beach house.
Instead, Thibodeau can explain what he thinks a good offense is nowadays. He spoke about just that last month when he was a panelist at the Sloan Sports Conference. During a discussion on the proliferation of 3s in the NBA today, he mentioned that he said he thought it was important to prioritize the shots with the most expected value — layups, corner 3s and free throws — and then pivoted to what he believes is crucial for offenses.
“How are the playoffs being played?” Thibodeau said at Sloan. “If we went back and looked at the shot profile of Golden State, they were prolific shooting 3s because of Steph (Curry) and Klay (Thompson), but they also were very good at the pick-and-roll game, they were very good at catch and shoot, and they utilized the post-up for the split game which got them layups. So they had a wide variety. To win in the playoffs, you have to have that sort of balance.”
He added: “You also have to ask what will win in the playoffs. I think teams that put more of a premium now on not only having a center that will roll and put pressure on the rim, but also having one center that will open up and shoot a 3, it opens up driving lanes. We’re seeing the value of that with Russell (Westbrook) getting to the basket now today. To win in the playoffs when you’re playing someone in a seven-game series, you have to have a diversification to your offense.”
It was not exactly a full-throated acceptance of an offense heavy on 3-pointers. Instead, Thibodeau preached moderation, which is consistent with his approach as a head coach. His teams have never finished higher than 16th in the league in 3s per game.
Thibodeau’s offensive style matters, especially for the Knicks, who have been bogged down for too long by increasingly antiquated principles on that side of the ball. This season they are 29th in the league in 3s per game. They haven’t finished higher than 20th in the league in percentage of shots that are 3s since the 2013-14 season, according to Cleaning The Glass, and have finished in the top six in long mid-range jumpers for seven straight seasons. Not coincidentally, they have been a bottom 10 offensive team in all but one of the last six seasons (the outlier: 2016-17, when they finished 19th).
There is no franchise that needs modernizing more than the Knicks. An increase in 3s is not a clean solution and pathway to better offensive efficiency but it would help. This season, five of the top 10 offenses were also in the top 12 in 3s per game. The Mavericks and Rockets were top two in both. The Lakers and Nuggets were the only ones of those in the top 1o to be in the bottom 10 in 3s per game, which provides the Knicks another pathway to success if they can pair together one of the greatest players of all-time with another of the league’s top six players, or center their offense around one of the best passing bigs of all-time. Last season, five of the top 10 offenses were also in the top-11 in 3s.
(Scroll or swipe left to read the chart in full)
Tom Thibodeau’s Offenses
| TEAM | RECORD | OFFENSIVE RATING (NBA RANK) | EFFECTIVE FG% | 3S/GAME (NBA RANK) | FT RATE RANK* | % OF SHOTS AT RIM RANK* | % OF SHOTS IN LONG MID-RANGE RANK* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 Wolves | 19-21 | 109.5 (15th) | 50.8% (23rd) | 28.5 (23rd) | 8th | 18th | 6th |
| 2017-18 Wolves | 47-35 | 112.5 (4th) | 52.3% (13th) | 22.5 (30th) | 3rd | 20th | 7th |
| 2016-17 Wolves | 31-51 | 110 (10th) | 51.1% (16th) | 21 (30th) | 5th | 8th | 7th |
| 2014-15 Bulls | 50-32 | 106.3 (11th) | 48.9% (21st) | 22.3 (16th) | 3rd | 8th | 19th |
| 2013-14 Bulls | 48-34 | 101.7 (28th) | 47.1% (30th) | 17.8 (28th) | 10th | 9th | 6th |
| 2012-13 Bulls | 45-37 | 102.4 (23rd) | 47% (29th) | 15.4 (29th) | 17th | 11th | 3rd |
| 2011-12 Bulls | 50-16 | 106.3 (5th) | 49% (14th) | 16.9 (18th) | 26th | 9th | 5th |
| 2010-11 Bulls | 62-20 | 107.2 (12th) | 50.1% (14th) | 17.3 (17th) | 15th | 4th | 13th |
| *Cleaning The Glass |
While Thibodeu has the reputation as a defensive coach, he has actually put together some strong offenses. Five of his teams finished with top 12 units in his eight seasons and he did pretty well in Minnesota. The Knicks could surely use some of that, even if they don't have any talents equivalent to Karl-Anthony Towns, Jimmy Butler, Derrick Rose or Joakim Noah at the moment (though they are still paying Noah).
There is the question of how the Bulls and Wolves put those offenses together. They weren't heavy on 3s. Thibodeau's teams have never finished in the top half of the league in 3s per game. His teams had a penchant for getting to the rim until his final season and a half in Minnesota. Thibodeau's teams finished only once in the top 10 in isolations plays run. They regularly play slow, pushing a pace slower than the league average in every one of his full seasons. And they love long mid-range jumpers.
He also has shown a willingness to bend to talent. Here is where his teams ranked in post-up frequency, via Synergy Sports during each of his eight seasons:
• 26th (CHI, 2010-11)
• 26th (CHI, 2011-12)
• seventh (CHI, 2012-13)
• seventh (CHI, 2013-14)
• 14th (CHI, 2014-15)
• second (MIN, 2016-17)
• fourth (MIN, 2017-18)
• third (MIN, 2018-19)
He eschewed post-up plays for his first two years in Chicago, when he had prime Derrick Rose hammering his way to the rim, and leaned on them more after Rose got hurt. The big surge in post-ups over his last few seasons was because he catered to Towns, who regularly was a league leader in those kinds of possessions.
"What I see in the playoffs is the transition usually gets taken away, then it becomes a pick-and-roll game," Thibodeau said at Sloan. "You have to have the ability to execute in the half-court. You have to be good in all phases of the game offensively and there has to be diversification."
If the Knicks hire Thibodeau, maybe they'll never quite join the 3-point revolution but they could still eventually run a top 1o offense. He has shown a willingness to change and adapt to the players he has. The bigger question then is if the Knicks can get him the offensive talent he needs. Thibodeau's Knicks might never be a high-paced, perimeter-oriented offense but he has shown he can get it to work.
There is the concern of how good his defense will be, though. While he is primarily remembered as a defense-first coach, the results were actually underwhelming. Here is where his teams ranked in defensive rating during his eight seasons as a head coach:
• first (CHI, 2010-11)
• first (CHI, 2011-12)
• sixth (CHI, 2012-13)
• second (CHI, 2013-14)
• 11th (CHI, 2014-15)
• 27th (MIN, 2016-17)
• 25th (MIN, 2017-18)
• 17th (MIN, 2018-19)
What worked early in his tenure in Chicago has not worked since. The defenses that gave up so few 3s with the Bulls started leaking them at high rates in Minnesota. If he gets a head coaching job for next season, it'll be important to see how and if he re-orients some of the defensive philosophies that made him so successful. To that end, it may actually be more important to know if Thibodeau can construct a great offense than if he can build a good defense.
Of course, one last question remains with Thibodeau and it's about the wear and tear he puts on his players. His reputation, more than anything else, is now tied to his willingness to play his stars heavy minutes. He has, fairly or unfairly, been stamped as a coach who grinds down his best players, which can be problematic during an era in which load management and body preservation is of the upmost importance. (In his last full season in Minnesota, three Wolves finished in the top 14 in minutes played on the way to the playoffs, and Butler finished third in minutes per game but missed 23 games due to an injury.) He was asked at Sloan how he would let data or analytics guide how many minutes he would allow his stars.
"Most teams are going to play their best players the most minutes," Thibodeau said last month. "If you went back even five years ago, you had your wings were all playing 38 minutes a game. Whether it was LeBron or Durant or Harden or Jimmy Butler. They all played around that. Now the number has gone down. The big thing was you didn't want your opponent to have their best player — because often times they're matched up positionally — so you wouldn't want to have your backup going against LeBron for five minutes because in five minutes that could be a 15-point swing. You're trying to win the game. That number has come down now, significantly. You still have guys that are playing (big minutes) ...
"The question — and it's a good one and it's a hard one — is rest vs. rust. A lot of teams now will rest guys about a month before the playoffs come to make sure they're completely healthy and then start building up their minutes so they have rhythm going in vs. giving them the rest at the end of the season so they try to get going and they can't find their rhythm. Thats always been an age-old question. Because you're collecting so much more data, I think you have to use it."
Thibodeau goes on to list the different ways to mitigate usage and load on his players. He suggested that it's possible to minimize wear on a star by subbing for them in practice or making them do player development in practice instead of a conventional session. Or he could do a walk-through before a game instead of a shootaround. He mentioned the importance of monitoring sleep but hard to measure.
What Thibodeau would do as a Knicks coach with that would be worth watching. David Fizdale raised red flags early on this season with his choice to play RJ Barrett long minutes, even in a blowout. The Knicks will continue to have young players who need proper development or could add stars at risk of injury or with a history of them and Thibodeau would be under the spotlight.
The pressure would then be on Rose to construct a team that could match Thibodeau's strengths. With the Timberwolves, he was keen on reuniting with his former Bulls players, bringing in Taj Gibson, Derrick Rose and Luol Deng. Gibson is already on the Knicks and has a team option for next season in his contract. What their first Knicks roster would look like, though, would be an interesting tell of how Thibodeau wants to play.
mafra
Legend
I prefer Atkinson, bc he?s proven it more recently (and he established something with a bunch of nondescript players). I mean, Thibs is fine and all... but anyone of us could?ve won with Rose-Noah-Butler trio.
I do know, our young core 4 will gel with Thibs. Knits, Knox, MRob, and RJ are gym rats and coachable and want to work. They?ll buy in.
I do know, our young core 4 will gel with Thibs. Knits, Knox, MRob, and RJ are gym rats and coachable and want to work. They?ll buy in.
Atkinson would be a good choice but Thibs has that relationship with Rose plus has the executive experience serving as President of the TWolves which Rose might find valuable being a first time NBA exec. Great player development guy as well, didn’t think he was as cerebral as he seems in this article being on that panel at Sloan and breaking down what it takes to win in the league. Now Kenny ain’t no dummy and might be as smart as Thibs but guys go with who they know and Rose knows Thibs.
Last edited:
Mike Vaccaro of the Post coming out for Kenny to be the next Knicks coach with Miller as his wing man. Vaccaro thinks JVG, Thibs and Kenny are his 3 best candidates. Not sure who Rose goes with since he renewed Perry’s contract, the obvious move was to clean house and purge the old regime but he didn’t do that.
https://nypost.com/2020/05/01/knicks-cant-show-mike-miller-the-same-scott-perry-courtesy/
https://nypost.com/2020/05/01/knicks-cant-show-mike-miller-the-same-scott-perry-courtesy/
Wargames
Starter
Going over this thread it?s insane how much a fiasco the wolves were that Thibs went from being considered a top 5 coach to everyone saying he is done. He really screwed up over there because they didn?t have the players he needed for his system, and as a GM he traded the a lot of talent to get it. He?s actually a pretty decent coach and like someone else said the kids are all legit gym rats, Randle is too. I don?t think the knicks having a winning season, but I am ok with Thibs. We actually got a few players who can run his system and play defense.
Thibs got fired because he was a bad president and personnel guy not because he was a bad coach. If JB stayed instead of asking out and they traded Wiggins instead of Zack he might still have his job in MN. These guys are making more money than ever, none of these guys should be complaining about putting in the work. KAT never missed a game his first 2 years, not sure what his issue with Thibs was.
Wargames
Starter
The issue with KAT is he is soft.....Also yeah keeping Wiggins instead of Lavine and JB leaving was a fiasco. Thibs deserved to be fired from the wolves. In NY he would just be the coach. I think he might thrive again in that role.
BTW, nice seeing old posters back esp. guys that know what they’re talking about.