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Tom Thibodeau is an unfortunate tale in modern basketball when you think about it. He joined a fraternity of coaches that includes Mark Jackson and Dwane Casey of being someone who helped build the foundation of a champion, only for the organization to look elsewhere for someone to get them over the top. It wasn’t clear for a while that the Knicks would replicate the success of Steve Kerr and Nick Nurse’s hirings, but what they got in Mike Brown was a resounding success.
The real tragedy with Thibodeau isn’t just his semi-rare distinction; it’s worse with added context. This is a man who eats, sleeps, and breathes basketball. He broke off an engagement in college to pursue his dreams of coaching, having been hopelessly obsessed with the game since. He’d been a coach in the NBA for 30 years, bouncing from an assistant on the Knicks to the defensive maestro on the ’08 Celtics to his two attempts at building foundations in Chicago and Minnesota.
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His third head coaching gig was the one he always wanted. As a kid from Connecticut, he said that the Knicks were always his dream job. Everything seemed perfect as he helped bring the team back to relevance, but his own limitations as a coach and a roster that failed to gel in Year 1 prompted a tough decision after five years in charge. Now, a year later, he had to watch an identical version of that team win with a different coaching philosophy. Bittersweet, to say the least.
I’ll always appreciate what Thibs did here, mostly because he was the gold standard as a coach for a relatively young fan who didn’t get to watch the 90s. Hell, up until him, Mike Woodson was my gold standard. I think it’d be foolish if anyone looked past how important it is to set a foundation, because you don’t go from LolKnicks to champs overnight.
And as crazy as it sounds, as the Knicks draw closer and closer to beginning their title defense, there’s something from the Tom Thibodeau era that the Knicks can use to weather the storm of a task that has devoured and, in some cases, torn apart much of the seven teams that came before them.
What’s that, you ask?
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Stamina.
Thibs’…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/tom-thibodeau-parting-gift-knicks-161135231.html
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Publish date : 2026-08-20 16:11:00
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