Rookie wrote:Leon Rose’s checklist

1) fire Thibs - check
2) sign Thanasis
3) hire Budenholzer

4) Talk to Brunson. Awkward!

martin wrote:

DLeethal wrote:Leon placing the target firmly on his back now if next season doesn’t go well so I respect him for that. Keeping Thibs would have been the easy route and allowed him to keep a scapegoat in his back pocket if things didn’t go well. He’s truly going for it and putting his neck on the line.

When you frame it this way, something significant happened to make Leon move like this? Feels like it.

I mean it kind of seems like the news about Johnny Bryant being a finalist seems to have sped this up. But it could just be that time of year where teams are hiring coaches before the draft and Knicks wanted to get this done quickly.

DLeethal wrote:

Chandler wrote:

DLeethal wrote:

VDesai wrote:I can understand, but still makes me feel terrible. Thibs rescued the team from oblivion. 5 yrs, 4 playoff appearances. Team was less than its parts this year, but hard to penalize him for only a really good year when it could have been great. Imagine that's how your job goes...thats why I feel terrible about it.

Not an obvious list of better coaches. Don't need a player's caddy. To exceed Thibs you need someone with strategic vision, analytical brilliance....who is that?

I agree with this which is why I think they have intel on the next big time coach from someone’s bench and not just going the simpleton route with Bud or Malone.

Was Thibs the simpleton route? I for one thought he would be a dud when he was hired and was rooting for Atkinson. Atkinson went sideways with the Nets; Thibs did great things here. I was seriously wrong on that

I was also seriously wrong with Randle but that's a separate issue

I'm not going to be surprised if they go with Malone or Bud, but they won't be hired based on their name or resume. They will be hired because of a serious vetting where they ask what they would do and why and go from there.

Atkinson was supposed to be someone with a vision etc but when he was with the Nets that meant race up the court and take first 3 points available. that didn't last long even if the math seemed to make sense. And then he had a great year w Cavs yet got smoked by Pacers

In a way he was but in other ways he wasn’t. On paper he was the simpleton route. A hard nosed guy who could install a culture. But no one else was touching him with a 10 foot pole at the time so it was a ballsy hire.

so why wouldn't Bud or Malone be ballsy under the circumstances under the same logic.

regardless I trust Leon, I think this had more to do with our sucking ass against top tier teams during the season than the Pacers series

ANd I suspect he didn't like whatever Thibs had to suggest about KAT and JB going forward. I had hoped that the Knicks would add some innovative assistants, and hopefully improve bench depth

Now I don't know what to expect. You fire Thibs with his relationship with JB, who is next -- Mikal, Hart?

crazy, crazy times

LivingLegend wrote:In regard to Malone and Malone being another Thibs.

I live in Denver and there is truth there - he's an old school, hard headed, tough SOB.

Two things though in his favor....

- he got thru to Joker who got in GREAT shape & improved defensively after some tubby early years (something to think about with Kat)
- he allowed &/or forced Joker/Murray to run 2 man game over and over and over (something we totally negated with Jalen/Kat this year)

Wouldn't be my first choice.

arguably did more with less -- our third and fourth best players OG and Mikal better than theirs

we also need someone who can handle NYC and media. Not sure if a newbie can do that

DLeethal wrote:

Uptown wrote:Was probably already mentioned but to me, this is an indication that Rose feels like Thibs didn't maximize the roster....Also wonder about some of the conversations going in behind the scenes... remember. the Bridges comment about mins

Getting doors blown off by top teams in reg season
Playing drop all year but instantly resorting to new coverages in playoffs
Steady regression of the offense all year long
3 starters in top 5 in minutes and all 5 in top 20
No utilization of bench lineups all year and being forced to experiment mid ECF
Inability to fully utilize Towns shooting prowess
Pounding a lineup with minutes and usage that didn’t get good results all year

Lots of reasons to have been concerned. Even the miraculous playoff run we looked like **** more often than not.

I don't think this is "the" reason but it certainly didn't help. Game 1 of pacers was almost impossible to lose. Pacers had less than 1% chance of victory. All he needed to do was defend the three point line and not foul. Pacers needed to hit threes and force turnovers and we let their their or fourth best guy impersonate Steph curry

VDesai wrote:I feel like the myth of Johnny Bryant may be greater than what he is. He's a player's coach right? Development guy?

I really don't think that's what we need- we need an outside the box strategic thinker. Within the context of mainstream basketball - Tom Thibs is as prepared, knowledgeable and able to communicate "inside the box." If you're gonna beat a Thibs you need a strategic thinker that's on the innovative side of the game...

This is where I am on Bryant --- Knick fans anointed him the next great coach because he would tell Thibs how many timeouts we had left or if someone had 3 fouls.

Joking some here but he'd be a risk with a new guy --- I'd almost trust Quinn more because he's been brought up under Spoelstra/Riley and played in the league.