Tom Terrific?
The Knicks flirtation with Tom Thibodeau took another step forward. It may be an inspired choice, but it isn't without significant risk.
February 12 of this year.
A month before the NBA would shut itself down, the Knicks officially took their last relevant gasp of air this season.
Perhaps that’s being a bit kind, but coming off a four-game win streak that brought New York to a respectable 13-18 under interim head coach Mike Miller, they were at least feeling frisky. Even after they dropped a double-OT heartbreaker to the Hawks, New York returned to the Garden to face a Wizards team they’d beaten in Washington just a month and a half earlier. There was, at the very least, a pulse.
It was short-lived. A one-point game with two minutes to go in the fourth quarter devolved into an 18-point loss. The Wizards missed a total of four shots in the final frame, scoring 68 points in the second half. It was one of the uglier nights in a season full of ugly nights.
With that as the backdrop, it couldn’t have been easy for Taj Gibson to stand dutifully by his locker and reflect about the challenges of building a winning culture within this team. I can only imagine he felt like a Michelin star chef now managing a McDonalds who was being forced to explain why the fries were burnt yet again.
And yet the answer was so painfully obvious: he not only knew why they were struggling, but knew exactly what it would take to fix the situation. He’d been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt. His words made it clear: there is a no bullshit approach to the job that is required for teams to turn the corner in this league, and despite some recent successes, the Knicks were still badly in need of a shower.
(Cut to Dennis Smith Jr’s four turnovers in six minutes that evening.)
It was only fitting, then, that the topic of conversation turned to his former head coach Tom Thibodeau, whose name had started to come up following the rumored hiring of Leon Rose a week prior. Thibs had been accused of many things over his time in the league, but a purveyor of bullshit is not one of them.
Ian Begley’s piece from that night recounts all of what Gibson said, but it’s impossible to put into words the reverence with which Taj spoke about someone who he clearly viewed as more than just a coach. The more he talked, the more you could see him being mentally transported back to his days playing for Thibs, like a veteran reenacting how a great battle unfolded. Gibson didn’t always emerge victorious under Thibodeau, but his teams were never unprepared for a fight. You could tell he missed those days.
I went back and listened to be certain, and sure enough, Ian’s singular question about Thibs prompted a two and a half minute soliloquy. He couldn’t shut up about the guy. The line that stood out the most was his initial response to Ian’s question about whether Thibodeau’s style can still work in the league: “He can do it. If you want to win, he can do it.”
(And win they did. While Thibs overall winning percentage as a head coach stands at .589, the number jumps to .630 in games he’s had Taj on the active roster.)
The subtext was clear: If you want to fuck around, Thibs isn’t the coach for you, but if you want to win, he’s your guy. When Taj said that “not everybody is capable of (accepting) the coaching,” it wasn’t hard to read between the lines, pertaining not only to certain young players in Minnesota, but also players within his own locker room.
As Knick fans now brace themselves for the strong possibility that Ice, Ice, Baby himself is finally going to get his chance at a job he once would have reportedly gotten on his hands and knees to attain, it’s worth asking: What exactly might the Knicks be getting themselves into?
I cited a few stats concerning Thibs several months back, the most interesting of which to me was this: in his last full season in Minnesota, the Wolves had the equivalent of a top-ten defense with Jimmy Butler on the court and gave up more points than the worst defense in the league when he was off. Doing some more digging, when Butler and Gibson were on the court, Minny was better than the fifth-ranked defense that year.
It goes to show that the demise of Thibodeau’s once ballyhooed “Ice” scheme - the one that specialized in neutering pick and rolls by forcing them towards the sideline - may be greatly exaggerated. If you give him the horses, the bet here is that he’ll give you a race.
It frankly seems a tad foolish to think that Thibs isn’t smart enough to adjust his methods to fit a league in which 3-pointers are far more prevalent than they were when he was named Coach of the Year a decade ago. As Mike Vorkunov’s excellent piece from last month makes clear, Thibs is not only extremely thoughtful about the shifts that are constantly occurring within the NBA, but also about how best to highlight his players’ strengths within that ever-changing ecosystem.
It’s also OK to have doubts. The minutes thing, as much as the counter-narrative to the narrative would like you to believe isn’t really a thing, is a thing. As Vork detailed, his recent offenses have also not screamed of modernity, and his exits from his only two head coaching stops have been messy to say the least.
Other narratives are downright silly. The notion that Thibodeau will play only his vets or that his hiring will spell doom for all of New York’s young players can be countered thusly:
He also has the league’s youngest MVP on his coaching resume. As LaVine - a player he dealt away to the team that fired him - put it a few months ago, “Yeah, he traded me, but for that one season he did coach me, he gave me an opportunity. He put the ball in the hands of a 20, 21-year-old kid and said, ‘Go hoop.’ That’s bigger than the business of basketball.’’
There is also the matter of his pre-existing relationship to Leon Rose and to the Knicks organization. Thibs has worked here under Dolan and, it would seem, wants to come anyway. For as much as I’ve made a stink in the past of comfort overtaking competence at the Garden, the fact that a head coach with Thibs’ track record wants to willingly take on this challenge should not be taken lightly.
Perhaps more importantly, success can’t happen without synchronization throughout an organization, so perhaps the fact that everyone wants to be in bed with one another isn’t the worst thing in the world.
But being on the same page also doesn’t guarantee shit, as we were reminded recently with the Mills, Perry & Fizdale kakistocracy. Familiarity shouldn’t be why they make this hire, and my guess is that it won’t be the primary reason. No, this is all about that amorphous blob of a term that Taj Gibson tried his best to give meaning to that February night: Culture.
Thibs built a culture in Chicago that they wrestled away from his cold, dead hands, and they still haven’t gotten it back. Then he tried mightily to instill one in Minnesota, but couldn’t overcome the challenges from within.
That ever elusive quan hasn’t taken hold in New York since Thibs’ idol saw the writing on the wall and walked out the door nearly two decades ago, and Taj Gibson sure isn’t the first one to know it’s missing. David Fizdale tried to get it back with an axe. Phil Jackson, a triangle. Isiah Thomas attempted to weaponize his boyish charm. Perhaps Mike Miller - boring old Mike Miller - has come the closest by simply putting one foot in front of the other and not tripping over his clipboard.
But for as respectable a job as he has done, the Knicks didn’t catch lightning in a bottle once Fiz was fired. Not that there was any lightning to be caught with this roster, but still; players respected Miller well enough (Taj made sure to sufficiently praise the job Miller did in tough circumstances before he waxed poetic about his former commander) but a leader of men who can bend the will of millionaires, well…there’s a select few who carry that level of gravitas, and even fewer who have the chops to back it up.
Thibs might be a caricature of a caricature of a head coach, but he has done the job, and done it well. He is also a man surrounded by narratives, but if and when he takes this job, only one will remain when he leaves it.
In one scenario, he will be guy remembered for coming along with the right scheme at the right time who got matched up with the right roster, but who couldn’t adapt to changing times or changing players.
In another, he will be remembered as an inspirer and an innovator who got the most out of everyone that Jimmy Butler didn’t think was a p———.
The answer, as is almost always the case in this league, will come down to the roster he is handed. It’s partially for that reason, and because I generally favor a more patient approach, that Kenny Atkinson would be my pick. We don’t have to trust that Atkinson - another former Knicks assistant - is hip to the changing times because his numbers in Brooklyn tell us so in black and white. We know that he knows how to spearhead a true top-to-bottom development project, which is how this should be viewed. He can also work with anyone.
Well, almost anyone, as Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving reminded us a few months back. Kenny is the guy to get you to the guy, whereas Thibs is the guy.
Are the Knicks ready for him? That depends on what they’re willing to give. As Taj put it:
"(It’s about) getting you better and wanting you to be better and expecting the utmost from you every day. Not just walking into the gym and being a pro but to leave the gym, knowing that you gave it your all. And you put forth 110 percent. Because he's going to want 110 percent out of you and he's going to challenge you because he wants the best out of you. And I honestly see that every time.”
It’s been a long time since any fan could watch the Knicks and feel confident that every player on the roster was giving 110 percent. It seems like Leon Rose thinks his friend Tom can make that happen.
But if expects a three star meal, Rose better make sure he gives Thibs the right ingredients to make it happen. If he does, New York could wind up being a fulfillment of the promise that began in Chicago.
If not, he’s just going to end up with a plate of burnt fries.