Firing Tom Thibodeau was a mistake: Knicks doomed to repeat history after getting rid of overachieving coach

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. 

The New York Knicks, who just completed their best season in the last 25 years, are about to find out just how true that saying is. They shockingly parted ways with Tom Thibodeau on the heels of their elimination in the Eastern Conference Finals, believing that a fresh voice could get them to the next step in their championship journey. 

Observers who have followed Thibodeau's career closely have heard something similar before. It's the exact same logic that was used when the coach was fired from Chicago, and under similar circumstances.  

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Tom Thibodeau coaching career

Thibs lasted five seasons with the Bulls, winning 65 percent of his games and getting the team to one Conference Finals. Along the way, he butted heads with management, who believed that his stubbornness and lack of offensive system was holding the team back. 

Then, the Bulls hired an offensive virtuoso in Fred Hoiberg, immediately dropped from a 50-win team to 42-40, and failed to even make the playoffs despite fielding virtually the same roster. They have yet to make it out of the first round since Thibodeau's departure. 

Thibodeau left a similarly-messy situation in Minnesota. After guiding his team to 47 wins in his second year, he was fired midway through his third season. Turmoil from Jimmy Butler's very public trade request led to a 19-21 start out of the gate which he couldn't overcome.

Thibs was fired, and his successor Ryan Saunders went 43-94 in the aftermath.

It took winning the lottery and drafting Anthony Edwards to get the Wolves out of that post-Thibs doldrums. 

Now, surprisingly, the Knicks are putting themselves in the same spot. Thibodeau won 57 percent of his games in New York over his five seasons. He took over a team that won 32 percent of its games and got them up to a 41-31 record in his first year. That won him a second Coach of the Year award to go along with the one he already had in Chicago. The Knicks continued to steadily improve, winning 51 games this season and falling two wins short of the Finals. Somehow, that wasn't enough to keep his job.

Thibs isn't a perfect coach. His reputation for playing his guys too many minutes is deserved, and his stubbornness cannot be denied. But as one former Thibs colleague told me a while ago, he's stubborn because he's a genius, and because he's usually right. 

Michael Malone, a New Yorker and former championship coach for the Nuggets, will probably be linked to the Knicks job. There will be hopes that he can modernize an already-good offense that finished no. 5 in the league this past year. 

X's and O's weren't the problem with the Knicks, despite what many pundits will tell you. And Malone  isn't going to be a magic fix. He said it best, in a quote to Mike Singer used in his Nikola Jokic biography. 

"F— X's and O's. That, to me, is the easy part of the game."

Every coach in the league is much more proficient at strategy than fans give them credit for. Malone believes that the bigger picture is "the managing of the personalities, the egos, having a vision, getting guys to buy in and commit to that." 

Thibodeau was better at both the strategy and the behind-the-scenes management than his reputation. He made great adjustments to the Knicks' defensive schemes in order to get past a favored and more talented Celtics team in the second round of the playoffs, opting to switch more with Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson.

TNT's Kenny Smith declared during the halftime show of Game 3 of the Conference Finals that "Thibs wouldn't play nine guys in a baseball game." It was a great one-liner that went viral. It was also completely untrue. Thibodeau had already played nine players in the game by the time that Smith made his pre-scripted joke.

Thibodeau continued to play nine guys through the rest of that Pacers series. When Towns was ineffective defensively, Thibodeau was willing to bench him. He pulled every lever that he could. Ultimately, the better team won.

The better narrative won too, as more people remembered Smith's line over what actually happened in the games. 

Thibs has garnered a reputation as an uncreative offensive coach. Ask his players or advanced scouts around the league, and they will tell you that he has one of the thickest playbooks in the league. His use of the Chin series throughout the Conference Finals was brilliant, leading to a higher offensive rating than the Cavs or Bucks could manage against the Pacers defense in earlier rounds.

One minute on three cool Thibs plays from last nighth/t: @stevejones20.bsky.social @modakhilnba.bsky.social @halfcourthoops.bsky.social, follow those three for amazing playoff analysis

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— Steph Noh (@stephnoh.bsky.social) April 25, 2025 at 2:02 PM

Fans aren't aware of those intricacies because the game moves too quickly to notice those strategic shifts in real time. Thibodeau was maligned for the stuff that's easier to observe but far less important — gruff answers to questions, rotational decisions, and eventually losing to a better team. 

One of the easiest things for fans to see is the primary reason why Thibodeau should still be coaching. You could never accuse the Knicks of not playing hard. That is what Malone called the most difficult aspect of coaching, and it's one that Thibs has proven he can succeed at year after year. 

This Knicks team was special because of their relentlessness. Whether it was Josh Hart bleeding all over the floor, flying in for impossible rebounds, or Mikal Bridges ripping the ball away from Jaylen Brown to seal a playoff game in his 51st minute of play, New York gave it their all. That stemmed from Thibs, the workaholic coach who demanded a lot from his players but even more from himself. 

Winning has always been the most important thing to Thibodeau. In the end, that is what sealed his fate yet again. He was fired based not on performance, but perception. Like the Knicks, he never learned from history, not caring to correct the record about his accomplishments. As such, he was doomed to repeat it. 

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