Leon Rose has some work ahead of him over the next few months. Free agency for OG Anunoby and Isaiah Hartenstein is approaching. Jalen Brunson is eligible for an extension at the maximum amount. And, as has been the case since he took over the Knicks, the fundamental question of identifying and acquiring the next piece is at this point, when the Knicks are ideally equipped to do it. there is.
There’s something else too.
Before they do anything, they need to extend Tom Thibodeau, who has one year left on his contract. Rose does this as a reward for what Thibodeau has already accomplished (three playoff appearances and two Series wins in the past four years, after five postseasons and one Series win in 20 years); This needs to be done to solidify that part of the company’s flowchart. For the immediate future.
We know where Coach stands on this matter.
Asked Sunday afternoon about the impending meeting with Rose, Thibodeau said, “My agent will sort that out.” “The Knicks have been great for me. This is where I want to be.”
And Thibodeau’s bosses show no signs of diminishing in their devotion to him. Thibodeau is 66 years old, but he’s a healthy 66 year old. If you add three or four years to the one year he is left, he will be in his 70s. By then, he may be ready to return to the beach and recreate the photo that became an Internet sensation last week.
And by then, the Knicks will probably be where everyone wants them to be. If they can get there with this core, it will be because of the foundation Thibodeau laid.
“What’s crazy to me is the idea that there’s any kind of debate on this subject,” a longtime NBA official said Monday. “I don’t think there’s a lot of that going on internally. But when I hear things about Tom and things that are common, I just want to scream: ‘What was it like under the previous dozen coaches?’ Look at the Lakers. Look at the Suns. Look at all these franchises that are desperate for real leadership.
“And the Knicks have players who are literally willing to go through walls for their coach. In the NBA? In 2024? I mean, when do we see that? Ever? And some people criticize him. Do you really?
The truth is, remember what those wild days were like between December 9, 2001 (the day Jeff Van Gundy quit the Knicks) and July 30, 2020 (those 6,808 days). The majority of Knicks fans out there are quietly existing. The Knicks were one of the most deplorable teams in North American sports.
Relevant numbers: 585 (wins), 863 (losses), and 13 (coaches who tried to coach the Knicks failed miserably, with the exception of one outlier, Mike Woodson).
Who are the detractors? The conversation always returns to one topic. That’s the problem with Thibodeau’s alleged insistence on having his players play to the brink of exhaustion. This is an inconvenient fact: during the regular season, the Knicks had no players who ranked in the top 13 in average minute workload, and only two players ranked in the top 50: Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle. Nevertheless, it continued this year.
Did that time balloon after the injury started and once the playoffs started?
Of course they did.
But for members of the armed group, which Thibodeau half-jokingly refers to as the “Capitol Police,” there are two things to think about.
1. The Knicks barely survived the 76ers in the first round — remember, they were just one point behind after six games — like Brunson, Josh Hart, and Donte DiVincenzo. These players are logging a huge amount of playing time. So, is the ideal solution to play less time and win fewer games? And maybe not win the winnable series? Is that really where we are getting to now?
2. In the same circles, the Knicks were ridiculed for playing hard enough to earn the No. 2 seed and then winning Game 82 in OT. What do you think? If the Knicks had finished as the No. 3 seed, they would have played the Pacers one round earlier. And if they insist they were better, their Game 2 opponent will be either Philadelphia, where Joel Embiid is more fully recovered, or Milwaukee, where Giannis Antetokounmpo is healthy again.
Facts are facts. The Knicks won 50 games, won a playoff series, and made it to Game 7 because of the team-wide discipline Thibodeau introduced that forbade self-pity. In the opinion of many people familiar with coaching, the job he’s done is the best ever, and he already has two Coach of the Year plaques under his belt.
Rose is someone who has calmly analyzed and evaluated the Knicks’ strengths and weaknesses since taking over, so it’s unlikely that he’ll get caught up in his foolishness. He knows what he has in Thibodeau. It’s only natural that he locks him up. Now he just has to do it.
