CALL MR. THIBS
Jax has & hire o
PHIL Jackson’s tenure with the Knicks has been a net positive. Whatever twisting pathway led him to select Kristaps Porzingis, the fact is he is a Knick and that is on Jackson. Robin Lopez has been better than expected. Arron Afflalo has been a solid pickup. The pieces on this team have almost universally been an upgrade over what preceded them.
Much of that splendid work was sabotaged by the first of his maneuvers (although even then, it is important to remember that Steve Kerr was Jackson’s first choice as coach, not Derek Fisher, and Kerr has done nothing to diminish Jackson’s gut choice there).
And even that can become a check mark on the positive side of Jackson’s ledger. Rather than stick with something that clearly wasn’t working, Jackson fired Fisher on Monday, capping a 10-game block of season that included nine losses and turned the Knicks from one of the season’s feel-good stories into one of its rabbit-hole calamities.
“I think Derek is relieved to not have this on his shoulders,” Jackson said, making a play on words after announcing he’d “relieved” Fisher of his duties, and if Fisher was relieved it’s difficult to find the word to describe what Knicks fans were feeling after a season and a half of observing Fisher’s curious rotation patterns, his curiouser remarks of where the team was and where it was headed, and more than a few strategic choices that left your head bleeding from having to scratch it so often.
This is where it becomes tricky for Jackson, though. Because while it is easy to fire a coach — it’s the oldest ploy in pro sports, after all — that’s actually not quite the case here. Because there is an even easier choice out there for Jackson when he makes his inevitable next decision: Who will replace Kurt Rambis, the substitute teacher who will be biding time on the Knicks bench unless he happens to have a bottomless supply of Luke Walton’s Pixie Dust for Interim Coaches?
Of course it should be Tom Thibodeau.
Of course it should be Thibodeau, 58, who once worked here under Jeff Van Gundy, who ran Jackson’s old kingdom in Chicago the past five years with intensity and ferocity, who refused to make excuses when injures compromised the Bulls’ championship blueprint, who shook gaggles of improbable wins out of the franchise before the very qualities that define him wound up wearing out his welcome.
Of course it should be Thibodeau because he is the most q person out there (unless y Jackson himself, which himself does not, and sho because of his age and his limitations). Because Thib far better suited than Mark for this challenge, because deeper résumé than Luke or Brian Shaw, the most a of Jackson’s Triangle Boys, there isn’t a chance in th that a Jackson marriage w Calipari would ever work.
Of course it shou Thibodeau. A profession of Thibodeau’s who talk every week told me Mon would kill for that job. T some coaches who think t York basketball’ stuff is s overblown hype, but T what it was like there. He enced it. He wants in.”
Of course it shou Thibodeau. When Carmel ny was a free agent in 2014 lege coach, Jim Boeheim, Post he had talked about A with Thibodeau and the th coach was excited about th bility of coaching Anthony
“I think Tom Thibodea of the better coaches in t Carmelo would be happ ing for him. It would be a — the coach-player relati Boeheim said, and hav strong relationship with a s er is key in building a winn Of course it should be hi And yet if there was o away from Jackson’s 20 media briefing Monday af it was this: There may be chance of Ken Reeves a man Dale coaching the Kn Tom Thibodeau. For the m discussing hypotheticals, gave similar versions of t theme:
“It’s always good to hav tionship, but it’s not par ... At some point. I’ll have a relationship with some coaches this team. ... The