As we all wish that the New York Knicks were still playing, the rumor mill hasn’t stopped. Leon Rose will be looking for his head coach for next season, assuming Mike Miller doesn’t return.
SNY’s Ian Begley reports, “several coaches and people” believe that Rose will hire Tom ‘Tibbs’ Thibodeau if Miller isn’t brought back. This comes as no surprise since Tibbs has been linked to the Knicks job for some time now.
Apparently Rose and Tibbs have been close for two decades, according to Frank Isola. This shouldn’t be look into as much. Rose has all his current and formers clients connected to the Knicks. It’s all filler.
This seems to be long overdue. Whenever the Knicks had a head coaching vacancy, Tibbs’ name always came up. Rumors swirled that Tibbs always wanted to coach the Knicks.
He was an assistant for the Knicks from 1996-2004. He was under Jeff Van Gundy, primarily, Don Chaney, Herb Williams and Lenny Wilkens. Van Gundy was drawn to Tibbs cause of his attention to detail and player development.
Tibbs may not be the best candidate to help develop these young Knicks players. He’s never been the type to develop players. He has young, good talent in Minnesota and was fired after 3 seasons. Thibs tried to adapt to the new style of play and he ran the young players into the ground, some games high 30 minutes. Plus, the old school mentality hasn’t worked of recent.
Another thing to pay attention to, say the Knicks hire Tibbs, is his health.
Tibbs is 106 games over .500 in his NBA head coaching career. The New York Knicks have won a total of 144 games over the last six seasons.