The Knicks have moved on. Why won’t the haters?

How many years does a franchise have to be good to not be slandered as bad? 10? 20?

After college, I worked at an Italian restaurant in a Six Flags theme park. Every night, right when we’d close and start cleaning up to go home, our manager Amy had the kitchen make her a steak. Every night, seven days a week: steak. So even on dead nights, when most kitchens would get a head-start on cleaning up and closing down, ours couldn’t. The kitchen staff lived in Buffalo. The park was an hour east, in the country, so they had to catch a bus home. If they missed it, there were no other busses. Amy didn’t care. Make me a steak.

She also never lifted a finger to help clean. Just literally sat in her little nook of the restaurant, alone and unmoving, until we were done. One time she complained the floors weren’t clean enough. That night after close I poured an obscene amount of bleach into the mop bucket and went to town on the floors. Amy had to leave the restaurant; the smell was making her sick.

Some people aren’t built for change. They are who they are, and they only aren’t when someone else nudges them out the way. You might think that applies to Tom Thibodeau. I don’t, personally. I don’t think Thibs was incapable of change; I’ve detailed several instances of revision from him during his Knick years. But I don’t think he was capable of changing far enough fast enough to win a championship. I don’t know why that’s so controversial for some people.

Last season was Thibodeau’s 13th as an NBA head coach. Between Chicago, Minnesota and New York, 10 of those were winning seasons. Six saw his team win at least one playoff round. He’s a two-time Coach of the Year winner – a decade apart, suggesting adaptability – who’s finished top-8 eight of 13 years. He’s good. Nobody really questions that. Julius Randle was good. Nobody questioned that, either; they questioned whether he was good enough to pilot or co-pilot a team to a title. Same with Thibs.

And it’s fair to question. He’s never won a championship. He’s never led a team to the Finals. This year, six wins from the trophy, is the closest he’s come. For his vaunted reputation as a defensively beautiful mind, that seems a relic from his 20 years as an assistant and his early days in Chicago. Thibodeau’s first four years with the Bulls, they finished third, second, sixth and second in defensive rating. In eight full seasons with the Bulls, Wolves and Knicks since, his teams ranked 11th, 27th, 27th, third, 11th, 19th, tenth and 14th. Not only is he no sure thing to win a championship, he’s not even a sure thing with the one thing he’s supposed to be a lock for.

The freaking out about the firing is so weird! It wouldn’t be if this were 2022, 2020 or almost any of the 20 years prior to that. I keep reading and hearing people – Knick fans, Knick media, national media – bugging. Bugging the Knicks fired Thibodeau. Bugging they haven’t signed his replacement yet. Bugging at the names they’ve been linked with so far. 

Jeezaloo. Go touch some grass.

The Knicks have been one of the league’s best teams the past five years. Not five weeks, or five months. Five. Years. Don’t believe me? Over the past half-decade, New York is one of five teams with at least two 50-plus win seasons, four playoff appearances and four series wins, along with Boston, Milwaukee, Denver and Phoenix, a.k.a. the 2024 champs, the 2021 champs, the 2023 champs and Mat Ishbia succeeding James Dolan as Théoden to Isiah Thomas’ Wormtongue. I suppose that makes Leon Rose Gandalf the White.

There’s literally zero evidence to suggest Rose fired Thibodeau rashly, or without a legitimate succession plan. Think about how attention-to-detail this front office has been since taking over. Remember the Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns’ trades? How in each case, before they were finalized, lots of plugged-in media and their sources were saying the Knicks would have to include Deuce McBride or Mitchell Robinson in the trades, that the numbers didn’t work otherwise under the new CBA? Until the Knicks got around the prohibition against aggregating multiple minimum salaries in a deal by giving those end-of-the-bench guys contracts worth a dollar over the minimum.

This is the same front office that was ahead of the curve signing Randle to a team-friendly extension after the ‘21 season. The same front office that laid the groundwork for signing Jalen Brunson the season prior, while the more-respected Mavericks were telling everyone they had no worries about keeping Brunson. The same front office that did enough prep work on a KAT/Randle deal ahead of time so when training camp neared and bad news on Mitch’s recovery timeline meant the Knicks needed a quick pivot to a healthy pivot, they could. 

You think that same front office fired their coach impulsively? Without a better plan B than “Maybe the same team that nailed us for tampering three years ago will just let us have their head coach”?

I think the Knicks have a clear idea what kind of coach they want. They need someone who views roster spots 8 through 10 less as a black hole or a black cat walking under a ladder and more as an aspect of the team that needs to be weaponized. They’ll want someone who doesn’t accuse numbers of lying when they’re not, who won’t insist on playing the same five guys 40 minutes a night because for the first six weeks their numbers were good, even though for the next four months they weren’t. They’ll want someone curious enough about McBride’s fit in the Knicks’ best lineups to give him actual time with them.

I think the Knicks are conducting their coaching search when and how they are because it’s a way of tampering without tampering. I do not think for one moment the Knicks are in love with Jason Kidd as a head coach. I don’t think they ever believed the Rockets would let them talk to Ime Udoka, nor the Wolves Chris Finch. And for the record, I don’t believe Billy Donovan and Quin Snyder were anything more than smokescreens. 

When I was 16 I cashiered at a K-Mart, one of the only young men in a store mostly staffed by young women. At one point there, four girls all liked me at the same time. While I’m undeniably charming and cook pretty well, I have never in my life been someone four people had any business all liking at once. Even then, my teenage ego understood: this isn’t about you; it’s about you in a specific context.

As of right now, the Knicks are the only team in the Association hiring. There may be candidates who wouldn’t normally consider New York their dream job, but right now that’s all that’s available. The Knicks hitting on one employed coach after another makes it very clear to anyone paying attention – without the Knicks actually communicating with them – that they’re looking for an established coach with a prior history of success. They may only solicit official responses from a half-dozen, but that ensures every single eligible head coach under the sun knows a title-contending Knicks team is looking for a new capo. 

So if the dream is more Erik Spolestra or Tyronn Lue, they know the Knicks are interested, without ever having actually heard from them. I don’t expect Spo or Lue to come to MSG (though if anything could cool the never-ending burn of the pain of Pat Riley faxing his way to South Beach . . . ). But there’s a chasm of options available between Spoelstra/Lue and Donovan/Snyder, some of whom have the smarts to know if they want to come to the Knicks, their best best is to quit and sign. Not only is that easier to accomplish, it also saves the Knicks what little draft assets they have.       

I don’t think firing Tom Thibodeau was a mistake. I don’t think it was a rash decision. I don’t think Jason Kidd will be the next coach; for what it’s worth, my utterly un-connected hunch/hope is that they’re after names we haven’t heard publicized. Some people aren’t built for change, The Knicks looked in the mirror and decided they are. Good is good, but it ain’t great. I don’t know if New York will get there, but I’m proud of their insistence on finding out.