joec32033 wrote:

Alpha1971 wrote:Coach has to make adjustments. Last seconds in regulation when Dallas put their bigs to grab a rebound why wasn't Simms out in ? Why didn't the team use a time out to advance the ball or to call plays. And the human body is not a machine and the players needed rest so they can be fresh at the end of the game. Fire Thibs

So......they were fresh enough to hold a 9 point lead with 30 seconds, while pretty much holding a lead the entire game.....then they all got tired at the exact same time and blew it and it carried into overtime?

WE blaming Thibs age? For real? He is not playing. we have a very young team and if you factor EF and Drose not in rotation its pretty darn young.
Joe presented some facts.
Whats with the blame thing? Young teams/players are inconsistant.
our near allstar PG was out.
Our 22 year old SF, and part of our core was lost in the openeing minutes.
Now we question thibs cognitive ability? LOL.
I aske this: What is the baseline for this team? Is Thibs doing a bad job and the team is underachieving? or are some of you sore and need an outlet after losing close games?
Its all on Thibs and the staff. The Good, and the Bad. But there is so much you can do with the talent. They also have to execute.
Whats next "Fire the FO, cuz they suck"?

Lets see. Lets say you have a friend with not so great car. He had it fixed and its better running now then it was a few months ago. He owes nothing on it. He has stocks/savings and can afford a better car. His current job gives him future potential.
He can:
1. Use his savings a buy a better car. Not a great car but a really nice one.
2. use part of his savings and borrow a lot of money and a really nice one.
3. Spend all his savings, sell his stocks when they are not matured, borrow the max, and get a great car.

Toppin, RJ, Deuce, IQ are stocks. They are gaining value.
We have picks (Cash)
We can trade future picks (borrow)

If you don't get it right you dig a hole. Lakers leveraged up and got a chip, but are struggling. It might be worth it.
Bulls leveraged up and are kind of in a bind. Like reverse amortization. They owe picks.
Pelicans are young, staked and have picks coming to them. They did not panic and dump Zion. They persevered thru a plan.

These are thin examples but other than PhilC, most of you get the point. We could be better, but there is a price. On paper its easy to plug and an play. More often its not.

joec32033 wrote:

GustavBahler wrote:Thibs has a rep for giving too much PT to his best players. RJ and Randle were in the top three in minutes last season. For most of it anyway.

Now they're 27th and 37th respectively. This rep predates NY, so its a good sign of a coach evolving. Im still in the lets see how this season plays out camp.

I Dont want to see Thibs gone regardless of how the Knicks finish. And dont want to see him kept on, regardless of how the Knicks finish. They're a young team, but with enough vets for the FO to make an informed decision on wether or not Thibs is the best choice going forward.

I respectfully disagree. I posted this in another thread, but it is relevant to this conversation....

As of 12/26/22
Barrett is getting 35 minutes per game. Tied for 30th in the league with a 32 year old Lillard.
Julius is getting 34.2 minutes. Good for 40th in the league.
Brunson is getting 32.5 minutes. Good for 66th in the league.

Minutes. Are. Not. The. Issue.

As a comparison, before this load management crap, in the 2002/03 season,
Barrett's minutes would have put him at 49. Julius minutes would have put him at 55. Brunson would be at 73.

http://www.espn.com/nba/seasonleaders/_/league/nba/sort/avgMinutes

Look for yourself. This Thibs minutes thing is so overblown. He is not playing anyone on this team a crazy amount of minutes. Derrick Rose tore his knee in 2012. His minutes before that (2008-2011) 37, 36.8, 37.4, and 35.3. Good for 25, 25, 14, 24 (the year he was injured). Seems the one up tick was in 2010. Top 25 minutes for a 22 year old MVP caliber player doesn't seem to crazy to me.

Jimmy Butler seems to be the only guy that Thibs relied on to play top 10 minutes. The seasons he averaged over 30 minutes a game (starting in his 3rd season 2013) he was ranked #1(T), #1, #4. And BTW, Fred Hoiberg played Jimmy Butler 37 minutes per game his first year (ranked 6)

Joakim Noah topped out at a rank of 14 in 2012 (when Rose got hurt). other than that, no major minutes of note.

In Minny Towns played 37 minutes per (ranked 5) in TT's first year as coach then steadily declined.

This minutes crap with Thibs started and ended with Jimmy Butler, and for some reason is a label he can't shake. I think the worst of it is that he requires a hard 37 minutes per game (he hasnt played any of his top players over what looks like 39 minutes per game).

Even Total minutes played they RJ and Julius weren't that high...

https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/player-stat/minutes-played?rate=season-totals&season_id=219

Julius was 41 and RJ was 63 last year in total minutes played.
Julius was 12 and RJ was 28 last year in average minutes last year.

Thibs requires hard minutes and believes in playing his best players more minutes. but Jimmy Butler was the only player where you could say Thibs was borderline abusive with minutes (then Hoiberg after him played Jimmy a crazy amount of minutes).

I dont believe Thibs rep for relying on starters too much is undeserved

https://www.nba.com/news/minnesota-timberwovles-tom-thibodeau-not-fretting-over-starters-minutes-load

The Timberwolves, meanwhile, have five starters – Taj Gibson, Jeff Teague, Andrew Wiggins, Karl-Anthony Towns and Jimmy Butler — in the top 36 in minutes.

This is a rather historic cluster by Minnesota. Dating back to NBA expansion in the 1966-67 season, only three previous teams placed all five starters among the top 40 in minutes per game. The St. Louis Hawks did it twice (1967-68 and ’69-70, after they had moved to Atlanta). And the ‘86-87 Boston Celtics did it en route to their fifth Finals in seven seasons.

The Wolves are on pace to become the fourth, with their starters playing a combined 177.2 minutes per game, most in the NBA by a considerable margin and not that far off that Celtics team’s all-time mark of 190.0.

As a percentage of a team’s available playing time, Boston’s Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge logged 73.2 percent of the ’86-87 Celtics’ regular-season playing time (14,492 of 19,805 minutes).

The 2017-18 Wolves? Their starters have played 69.6 percent of Minnesota’s available time so far (6,563 of 9,435).

The man in the middle of all those minutes, of course, is Tom Thibodeau.

As both the Wolves’ coach and their president of basketball operations, Thibodeau is charged with both the short-term success and long-term viability of that franchise, which makes his usage of players at times a source of controversy in the Twin Cities.

Said Chicago Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg: “I played with Kevin Garnett, and he played 43 minutes one night. Then on the back-to-back, he played 45. Jimmy [Butler] had the unique ability to go out and play a full half. … Certain guys are just wired that way. A lot of it’s on the individual. There are certain guys you can’t throw out there for too long — they’ll break down.”

That’s the rap on Thibodeau, that he presided over some of the NBA’s more unfortunate individual breakdowns and blowouts. Former Bulls forward Deng, for example, averaged 39.1, 39.4 and 38.7 minutes in his first three seasons with Thibodeau. He had a series of nagging injuries before aging seemingly overnight, and for three seasons has been the shell of the All-Star player he once was.

Noah was a two-time All-Star who won Kia Defensive Player of the Year and finished fourth in MVP balloting in 2014. He, too, embraced Thibodeau’s work ethic and played through injuries until he couldn’t. Noah missed 53 games in his final season with the Bulls and has appeared in only 52 of a possible 120 games since signing a four-year, $72-million deal with the Knicks.

Rose remains the poster guy for careers waylaid by injuries, most traumatically his blown left ACL in the playoff opener of 2012. The Bulls’ point guard had missed 27 of the post-lockout 66-game schedule with various ailments before suffering his knee injury late in the Game 1 victory over Philadelphia, the outcome arguably no longer dependent on his services.

Like many coaches, though, Thibodeau tends to think that the 21.5 hours each day a player is not playing in a game matters more than five or six extra minutes of competition. And the days in between matter, too, with body maintenance so important and with Thibodeau — unbeknownst to many — easing off the throttle in the frequency and intensity of Minnesota’s practices

fishmike wrote:^^^ what literally every NBA coach does

They dont set NBA records doing it fish.

Why do the moms in those old frontier type movies look so damn good in movies?
Old yeller bark does sound like Thibs gravely voice!
I had a dog that was not rabid and could not wait for him to pass. He'd run off and I'd be like "OK", I don't want you here and you don't want to be either.
He always came back.

Then once, he did not.
My kids were upset for 10min. Then wanted to know when we could replace him. Nobody like him really.
O'happy Day........

GustavBahler wrote:

joec32033 wrote:

GustavBahler wrote:Thibs has a rep for giving too much PT to his best players. RJ and Randle were in the top three in minutes last season. For most of it anyway.

Now they're 27th and 37th respectively. This rep predates NY, so its a good sign of a coach evolving. Im still in the lets see how this season plays out camp.

I Dont want to see Thibs gone regardless of how the Knicks finish. And dont want to see him kept on, regardless of how the Knicks finish. They're a young team, but with enough vets for the FO to make an informed decision on wether or not Thibs is the best choice going forward.

I respectfully disagree. I posted this in another thread, but it is relevant to this conversation....

As of 12/26/22
Barrett is getting 35 minutes per game. Tied for 30th in the league with a 32 year old Lillard.
Julius is getting 34.2 minutes. Good for 40th in the league.
Brunson is getting 32.5 minutes. Good for 66th in the league.

Minutes. Are. Not. The. Issue.

As a comparison, before this load management crap, in the 2002/03 season,
Barrett's minutes would have put him at 49. Julius minutes would have put him at 55. Brunson would be at 73.

http://www.espn.com/nba/seasonleaders/_/league/nba/sort/avgMinutes

Look for yourself. This Thibs minutes thing is so overblown. He is not playing anyone on this team a crazy amount of minutes. Derrick Rose tore his knee in 2012. His minutes before that (2008-2011) 37, 36.8, 37.4, and 35.3. Good for 25, 25, 14, 24 (the year he was injured). Seems the one up tick was in 2010. Top 25 minutes for a 22 year old MVP caliber player doesn't seem to crazy to me.

Jimmy Butler seems to be the only guy that Thibs relied on to play top 10 minutes. The seasons he averaged over 30 minutes a game (starting in his 3rd season 2013) he was ranked #1(T), #1, #4. And BTW, Fred Hoiberg played Jimmy Butler 37 minutes per game his first year (ranked 6)

Joakim Noah topped out at a rank of 14 in 2012 (when Rose got hurt). other than that, no major minutes of note.

In Minny Towns played 37 minutes per (ranked 5) in TT's first year as coach then steadily declined.

This minutes crap with Thibs started and ended with Jimmy Butler, and for some reason is a label he can't shake. I think the worst of it is that he requires a hard 37 minutes per game (he hasnt played any of his top players over what looks like 39 minutes per game).

Even Total minutes played they RJ and Julius weren't that high...

https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/player-stat/minutes-played?rate=season-totals&season_id=219

Julius was 41 and RJ was 63 last year in total minutes played.
Julius was 12 and RJ was 28 last year in average minutes last year.

Thibs requires hard minutes and believes in playing his best players more minutes. but Jimmy Butler was the only player where you could say Thibs was borderline abusive with minutes (then Hoiberg after him played Jimmy a crazy amount of minutes).

I dont believe Thibs rep for relying on starters too much is undeserved

https://www.nba.com/news/minnesota-timberwovles-tom-thibodeau-not-fretting-over-starters-minutes-load

The Timberwolves, meanwhile, have five starters – Taj Gibson, Jeff Teague, Andrew Wiggins, Karl-Anthony Towns and Jimmy Butler — in the top 36 in minutes.

This is a rather historic cluster by Minnesota. Dating back to NBA expansion in the 1966-67 season, only three previous teams placed all five starters among the top 40 in minutes per game. The St. Louis Hawks did it twice (1967-68 and ’69-70, after they had moved to Atlanta). And the ‘86-87 Boston Celtics did it en route to their fifth Finals in seven seasons.

The Wolves are on pace to become the fourth, with their starters playing a combined 177.2 minutes per game, most in the NBA by a considerable margin and not that far off that Celtics team’s all-time mark of 190.0.

As a percentage of a team’s available playing time, Boston’s Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge logged 73.2 percent of the ’86-87 Celtics’ regular-season playing time (14,492 of 19,805 minutes).

The 2017-18 Wolves? Their starters have played 69.6 percent of Minnesota’s available time so far (6,563 of 9,435).

The man in the middle of all those minutes, of course, is Tom Thibodeau.

As both the Wolves’ coach and their president of basketball operations, Thibodeau is charged with both the short-term success and long-term viability of that franchise, which makes his usage of players at times a source of controversy in the Twin Cities.

Said Chicago Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg: “I played with Kevin Garnett, and he played 43 minutes one night. Then on the back-to-back, he played 45. Jimmy [Butler] had the unique ability to go out and play a full half. … Certain guys are just wired that way. A lot of it’s on the individual. There are certain guys you can’t throw out there for too long — they’ll break down.”

That’s the rap on Thibodeau, that he presided over some of the NBA’s more unfortunate individual breakdowns and blowouts. Former Bulls forward Deng, for example, averaged 39.1, 39.4 and 38.7 minutes in his first three seasons with Thibodeau. He had a series of nagging injuries before aging seemingly overnight, and for three seasons has been the shell of the All-Star player he once was.

Noah was a two-time All-Star who won Kia Defensive Player of the Year and finished fourth in MVP balloting in 2014. He, too, embraced Thibodeau’s work ethic and played through injuries until he couldn’t. Noah missed 53 games in his final season with the Bulls and has appeared in only 52 of a possible 120 games since signing a four-year, $72-million deal with the Knicks.

Rose remains the poster guy for careers waylaid by injuries, most traumatically his blown left ACL in the playoff opener of 2012. The Bulls’ point guard had missed 27 of the post-lockout 66-game schedule with various ailments before suffering his knee injury late in the Game 1 victory over Philadelphia, the outcome arguably no longer dependent on his services.

Like many coaches, though, Thibodeau tends to think that the 21.5 hours each day a player is not playing in a game matters more than five or six extra minutes of competition. And the days in between matter, too, with body maintenance so important and with Thibodeau — unbeknownst to many — easing off the throttle in the frequency and intensity of Minnesota’s practices

First off Thank you for at least engaging the conversation, instead of trying some who do voodoo to get out of the debate....

Thibs relies on his best players to play a lot of minutes. No denying that, but other than Deng (who I didn't mention in my original post because I didn't think of him) and Butler after him, I saw guys getting a lot of minutes, but nothing to go crazy about. I also look at the time frame this happened. Deng was 2010-2013. Butler basically replaced Deng's minutes in 2014 and 2015. Rose hovered around the 37 minute mark (and was around 10th minutes played in the seasons before his injury at his age 22-24 seasons which is alot but not earth shattering). In 2010, 23 players played above 37 minutes per game. In 2011-15. 2012-10. 2013-14. 2014-8. 2015-2 (Butler and Lebron). You notice the large drop off in 2014.

In 2015, 6 teams had two players in minutes played in the top 20. (Rockets, Wizards, Blazers, Magic, Clippers, Cavs). 2014, Blazers (3 players 11, 12, 13), Rockets (2 in the top 10). Bulls had Deng and Noah was at 21.
2013- Bulls, Rockets, Blazers, Nets, Warriors. 2012-Thunder, Clippers, Lakers, Grizzlies. 2011-Warriors, Blazers, Celtics, Heat (Lebron, Wade, Bosh). 2010- Grizzlies (3 players) Lakers, Mavs, Hornets.
Guys like LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Love, Montae Ellis, Pau all regularly appear yearly in the top 20 in minutes played. The Bulls under Thibs barely appear twice on this list.

Rose didn't play a lot of minutes before his injury. Played 37 minutes per his first 3 seasons and was 19, 21, 11 and was at 35 minutes per game the season he got injured (his lowest in his first 4 years). The writer points to Joakim Noah and Deng falling off a cliff. Butler hasn't. Boozer didn't. Towns, Wiggins, haven't. Rose seems to have had a relatively long career, given circumstances.\

His time in Minnesota I am writing off to whining players in the load management era not wanting to play. I haven't heard one of these players blame Thibs for shortening their careers. I remember Towns crying because he didn't want to play so much.

I'm not saying that Thibs doesn't depend on players to play hard minutes. He does. He also plays his best players more. That's inarguable. but the rep he has for these superfluous crazy minutes isn't warranted. Guys Like Terry Stotts (Blazers), Kevin McHale (Rockets), hell Mark Jackson (Warriors) and Lionel Hollins (Grizzlies) have earned the rep just as much.

Philc1 wrote:If we miss the play in I wouldn’t be shocked if Thibs got fired next offseason. This team isn’t great but it really should be finishing between a 7-9th seed. Too much talent to not have a postseason

Thibs is a defensive coach without a lot of offensive creativity.

This team is built around 3 offensive players not known for defense. Then we added roll player vets also not known for defense. So I’m thinking a defensive coach would be perfect. Turn these offensive players into 2 way players.

So from the very very beginning there was misalignment.

What I didn’t expect was the lack of in game coaching adjustments or end game management. Just some basic skills needed for a playoff team built around offensive players. Then the quietness of why players are removed, benched and not playing. That 8 game winning streak tells you what we can do when all stars are aligned. But it only took one small change (Grimes injury started the fall) and other injuries as well like JB and RJ.

This team is too fragile right now. And to win we need thibs high minutes players to be healthy. We need a bunch a jimmmy butlers and Kevin garnet. Players that can successfully play the entire 2nd half and not be fatigued at the end. Oh I forgot, they must stay healthy as well after playing all those mins.

For thibs to be successful as a playoff team he needs more players that can handle a lot of mins without degrading their performance. Cause he going to find his players and ride them til the end. That’s why players love him and fans are split. He allows his best players to play the most mins without any Pt restriction. This is fine when you have the players to handle this.

KG and Jimmy butler are defensive 2 way players. The Knicks top dogs are not. And when you play offensive players heavy mins and expect them to use some of their offensive energy on defense you get tired legs and missed shots.

Grimes is a two way player who gives you defense regardless of his offense. Grimes is a thibs type player. If we keeping thibs then give him the players he need to win. This pipe dream that Thibs can turn an offensive player into a defender is over. That was my dream. So give him what he needs to succeed. Deuce is a one way player but that one way is what thibs want on defense.

blkexec wrote:

Philc1 wrote:If we miss the play in I wouldn’t be shocked if Thibs got fired next offseason. This team isn’t great but it really should be finishing between a 7-9th seed. Too much talent to not have a postseason

Thibs is a defensive coach without a lot of offensive creativity.

This team is built around 3 offensive players not known for defense. Then we added roll player vets also not known for defense. So I’m thinking a defensive coach would be perfect. Turn these offensive players into 2 way players.

So from the very very beginning there was misalignment.

What I didn’t expect was the lack of in game coaching adjustments or end game management. Just some basic skills needed for a playoff team built around offensive players. Then the quietness of why players are removed, benched and not playing. That 8 game winning streak tells you what we can do when all stars are aligned. But it only took one small change (Grimes injury started the fall) and other injuries as well like JB and RJ.

This team is too fragile right now. And to win we need thibs high minutes players to be healthy. We need a bunch a jimmmy butlers and Kevin garnet. Players that can successfully play the entire 2nd half and not be fatigued at the end. Oh I forgot, they must stay healthy as well after playing all those mins.

For thibs to be successful as a playoff team he needs more players that can handle a lot of mins without degrading their performance. Cause he going to find his players and ride them til the end. That’s why players love him and fans are split. He allows his best players to play the most mins without any Pt restriction. This is fine when you have the players to handle this.

KG and Jimmy butler are defensive 2 way players. The Knicks top dogs are not. And when you play offensive players heavy mins and expect them to use some of their offensive energy on defense you get tired legs and missed shots.

Grimes is a two way player who gives you defense regardless of his offense. Grimes is a thibs type player. If we keeping thibs then give him the players he need to win. This pipe dream that Thibs can turn an offensive player into a defender is over. That was my dream. So give him what he needs to succeed. Deuce is a one way player but that one way is what thibs want on defense.

I think a more accurate term rather than fragile is brittle. The team has heart and largely plays hard (if not smart) but this team *requires* a happy path to succeed. In other words, every critical piece fits exactly right and anything that goes amiss breaks the entire thing.

You are exactly right that Thibs is playing to win until winning is no longer an option. That is the case. The question is 'what is the FO thinking?' In order for Thibs to succeed they need to structure their moves for some kind of immediate gratification that involves hardening the roster to more adequately compete when the going gets brittle.

That largely means that the proverbial *future* plans are tempered by the window of opportunity Thibs represents in the here and now. The trick will be uncluttering the roster to surgically improve the secondary bench strength.

And lately I have been questioning the cult of defense. Maybe we have got it wrong and the D'Antoni-s of the world are more right. Scoring more points is not such a bad strategy either. We should be using Fournier strictly for raining some threes in specific situations. And we could use some firepower off the bench. There have got to be some shooters out there in the GLeague that fit that bill.

blkexec wrote:

Panos wrote:I think we should change the name of this thread to "Fire the coach" and it can be pinned from now until eternity.

Until we win a chip you probably right

Can we also pin "Play the yoots" thread.
In fans mind, there is always a better younger option on the bench that the "Coach" is just not giving enough minutes to.

HofstraBBall wrote:

blkexec wrote:

Panos wrote:I think we should change the name of this thread to "Fire the coach" and it can be pinned from now until eternity.

Until we win a chip you probably right

Can we also pin "Play the yoots" thread.
In fans mind, there is always a better younger option on the bench that the "Coach" is just not giving enough minutes to.

It's like the old saying in football, about the back up quarterback.