Since the New York Knicks fired Tom Thibodeau as their head coach, many around the league were stunned by the decision. The main reason for that shock is that the team just had its most successful season in over two decades under Thibodeau.
Some believe that the decision was more of a mistake considering their plans, or lack thereof, afterwards. They are still searching for a new head coach and have asked several teams if they could interview their head coach, but to no avail.
Knicks legend Carmelo Anthony agrees it was time to move on from Thibodeau
However, many also felt that the Knicks made the right decision in moving on from Thibodeau. One of those is Knicks legend and Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony.
“Everybody else thinks that [the firing] just happened overnight,” he said. “That’s been the part of the conversation behind the scenes going on…he was under a microscope for a period of time,” Anthony said on his podcast, 7 PM in Brooklyn.
The Knicks’ decision to fire Thibodeau was not an impulsive one. It had been one that was brewing for quite some time, and was amplified during the postseason when adjustments weren’t being made promptly.
For instance, Thibodeau didn’t change up the starting five until they were already down 0-2 to the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. The starting group that was out there before the change was by far their worst-performing five-man group in the playoffs, so Thibodeau didn’t properly adjust a lineup that wasn’t working well together.
Thibodeau did not maximize his roster
Furthermore, Thibodeau rarely expanded his rotation to give his bench players more opportunities. He often played shallow rotations of eight or nine guys during the regular season, and further shortened it during the postseason.
It would have taken a lot for Thibodeau to keep his job beyond this year, possibly even a championship. Anthony suggested that the lack of timely adjustments is ultimately why he was canned by the Knicks.
“It’s a fine line of adjustments that you have to make, and he just don’t make those adjustments,” Anthony added.
!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||[],g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(“has-featured-video”,”true”)})}();