Can we all relax now? After winning three straight games and improving to 8-6 on the season, the New York Knicks have allowed their fanbase to take a breath.
If only Knicks fans would cut Tom Thibodeau more of the break he deserves.
With the Knicks set to embark on their season-long five-game road trip—starting with a Wednesday night game in Phoenix—this might be the perfect time for fans to reflect on how this head coach handles his business.
This is a brand-new team
Remember, this isn’t the same team we watched miraculously battle through injury last spring. It’s not even close to the same team.
What was once a scrappy and underdog-type squad that befuddled many NBA pundits along the way is now much more of a polished and modern-esque squad.
Sure, Donte DiVincenzo’s single-season Knicks record of 283 three-point field goals meshes with the modern association, but relying so much on one man simply does not. Karl-Anthony Towns‘s presence not only gives them a true five-man who can hit from behind the arc, but he provides the Knicks with the perfect crunchtime recipe needed …
The 1-5 pick-and-roll.
This season, the Jalen Brunson-Towns two-man game down the stretch is the squad’s bread and butter. Period. And to jump down anybody’s throat before the 20-game mark—no less the 10-game mark, as has been already witnessed—is a foolhardy exercise.
Working out the kinks of an entirely new team takes time, even in this star-led league of the NBA.
New team? Sure. Thinner team? Absolutely.
Forget the Tom Thibodeau critics who were already calling for the man’s job after the Knicks’ slow defensive start—which is an absurdity in its own right. The more pervasive criticism, and the one that actually has some merit to it, is one that Thibs can’t actually solve quite yet.
The 2024-25 Knicks have a much higher ceiling as constructed, but they are also undoubtedly much thinner. And this doesn’t jive well with Thibodeau’s usual short-bench tactics.
Newcomer Mikal Bridges leads the team in minutes per game at 38.5. Josh Hart is second in the category at 37.1 minutes per contest. Those hefty numbers put Bridges at third in the NBA, whereas Hart is currently tied for sixth.
Sure, the more enviable position is to avoid the minutes-per-game leaderboard at nearly every cost, but Thibs has very little flexibility right now.
Miles McBride’s injury, combined with the Precious Achiuwa and Mitchell Robinson situations, has now taken away the Knicks’ No. 6, 7, and 8 players (as projected coming into the season). Beyond backup guard Cameron Payne, it’s all youth and inexperience.
Eventually, New York will be forced into playing Tyler Kolek, Ariel Hukporti, Pacome Dadiet, and others for more minutes, but do Knicks fans truly want to see that experiment at this very moment when this brand-new squad is trying to find itself?
Besides, when at full strength, Thibodeau has already proven to avoid pushing the minutes’ boundary. Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle, both of whom tied for the Knicks’ minutes leader last season, at 35.4, finished tied for 15th on the league leaderboard in 2023-24.
Remember who truly changed the culture
The nature of sports fandom is hardly fickle in the grand scheme of things, yet it’s ultra-prickly on a daily basis. In other words, although diehard Knicks fans can never abandon their team, memories are oftentimes entirely too short.
As magnificent as the gift of Jalen Brunson has been to the Big Apple, it wasn’t he who changed the culture; it was Tom Thibodeau.
Arriving a full season before the Villanova product, Thibodeau not only wanted the Knickerbockers job, but he also thrived on lifting a destitute franchise.
The 2019-20 Knicks finished a lowly 21-45 under David Fizdale and interim head coach Mike Miller. A short year later, the 2020-21 Knicks won 41 games and made the playoffs for the first time in eight excruciating seasons.
Surely, the roster had to be improved, right?
Not really.
Julius Randle and rookie RJ Barrett arrived in 2019, whereas Mitchell Robinson and Kevin Knox had landed prior to 2019.
The only notable personnel differences between the year before Thibodeau and his first season in New York are as follows:
- Immanuel Quickley
- Obi Toppin
- Derrick Rose
That’s it.
So how did Tho Thibodeau actually improve the Knicks’ win total by 20 games with essentially the same roster? Well, without going into the nitty-gritty and analytical side of things, here’s the short of it …
He’s a damn good basketball coach.
Relax and enjoy the ride
No, Tom Thibodeau isn’t perfect; no coach is. But what he did in his first year, as it relates to flipping the script on Julius Randle’s career and revitalizing a previously dormant basketball culture within the organization, deserves a round of applause not deserved around Madison Square Garden’s hardwood for quite some time.
Now that Knicks fans are finally feeling good again, shedding their nervous energy, courtesy of their new-look team, it’s time to relax and enjoy what this new squad can do.
Oh yeah, it’s also time to give Tom Thibodeau the benefit of the doubt. By no means is he above criticism, but he also shouldn’t be held to the same standard as somebody like David Fizdale before him.
With his demanding ways in accountability, conditioning, and true attention to detail—especially on the defensive end of the floor—Tom Thibodeau has more than deserved it.
