{"id":172874,"date":"2025-09-22T00:35:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T00:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/172874\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T00:35:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T00:35:11","slug":"we-just-found-out-how-tom-thibodeau-could-have-kept-his-job-with-the-knicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/172874\/","title":{"rendered":"We just found out how Tom Thibodeau could have kept his job with the Knicks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Thibodeau losing his job after leading the New York Knicks to their first Eastern Conference Finals appearance since 2000 is supposed to signal just how championship-or-bust<\/a> the organization is treating its current window. Heck, team president Leon Rose said as much in the press release<\/a> announcing the decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As it turns out, though, Thibs\u2019 fate may have been decided by the players.<\/p>\n

During a recent SiriusXM NBA Radio appearance, SNY\u2019s Ian Begley spoke about the importance of new head coach Mike Brown building trust with the roster. While doing so, he hinted that Thibs\u2019 approval rating<\/a> in the locker room may not have been terribly high.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you catch [the veterans] at an honest moment, some of them were ready for a fresh voice, and I think that\u2019s where Mike Brown has an advantage coming in,\u201d he explained. \u201cThese guys, they loved Tom Thibodeau. But none of them also stepped up and said \u2018Hey, Tom Thibodeau has to be the coach here, or I\u2019m leaving.\u2019 If that happened, maybe Tom Thibodeau is still here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

We already knew Thibs wasn\u2019t vibing<\/a> with OG Anunoby, or Mikal Bridges. But Begley\u2019s comments suggest there were issues elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The absence of an impassioned Thibs defenses seems notable<\/p>\n

Sure, the affinity Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart have for Thibs is a matter of fact.<\/a> Nobody, though, definitively campaigned for Thibs to stay following New York\u2019s playoff exit. Hart went after his former coach\u2019s critics<\/a> most aggressively once he was already canned.<\/p>\n

The absence of a #SaveThibs movement isn\u2019t necessarily evidence of an irreparable disconnect between him and the entire roster. And while an ESPN report claimed the Knicks fired Thibs in part because of how much he relied<\/a> on Brunson, it did not imply the captain himself felt the same.<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s fair to wonder whether Brunson, specifically, could have stopped Thibs\u2019 firing. He is the lifeblood of the entire organization<\/a>\u2014the player currently most responsible for the Knicks\u2019 status as title contenders. He is also fresh off signing an extension last offseason that\u2019s so team-friendly<\/a> people are calling for the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast to investigate it.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

If that player had walked into Rose\u2019s office and said \u201cIf Thibs goes, I go,\u201d surely the franchise would have listened\u2026right?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a chance the players could never have saved Thibodeau\u2019s job<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t an attempt to put Thibs\u2019 dismissal on Brunson\u2019s shoulders. So many factors were at play. And Thibs himself is far from blameless.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We also can\u2019t be sure that the players or even Leon Rose wielded enough power in this situation. A June report from Vincent Goodwill, then of Yahoo Sports, alleges that owner James Dolan played a critical role<\/a> in the decision. Nobody is going to overrule him.<\/p>\n

This could even be a case of Thibs\u2019 supporters deferring to the majority. Maybe Brunson was prepared to fight for his coach\u2019s job, only to find out that Bridges, Anunoby, and others supported the change in voice. At that point, as the consummate team leader<\/a>, it\u2019s his responsibility to take the wider roster\u2019s feelings into account.<\/p>\n

These latest comments from Begley are nevertheless fascinating. We will never know for sure if Brunson or anybody else could have saved Thibs\u2019 job. But it also doesn\u2019t sound like anybody truly tried.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Thibodeau losing his job after leading the New York Knicks to their first Eastern Conference Finals appearance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-172874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}