” Anytime you go into a circumstance you think about ways you can enhance your club,” Thibodeau stated Thursday, the day he formally took over the reins of the Knicks. Thibodeau speaks mainly in specifics, and with the authority of a male who has won 59 percent of his games as an NBA coach. Speaking of the gamers he inherits now, Thibodeau said, “But I believed there were some players that truly stepped up, and did a good task. Van Gundy was a severe basketball guy, and Thibodeau is a serious basketball guy, so serious he often makes Van Gundy look like Jackie the Joke Man by comparison.
It is likewise useful to go back 24 years to the day Thibodeaus buddy and training guidepost, Jeff Van Gundy, rose to the head-coaching task after Don Nelsons surprise axing 23 video games from the end of the season. Van Gundy is another one who was never going to win a press conference in those days, when he was an obscure, hollow-eyed, scratchy-voiced health club rat.
Besides: Knicks fans are tired of victorious press conferences. David Fizdale and Jeff Hornacek were outstanding performers on Day 1, less so thereafter. Nobody had a more triumphant interview than Phil Jackson carried out in 2014, when he wasnt simply hired to run the Knicks, he was canonized. Winning journalism conference is swell.
However from the start, the reason he had the ability to prosper in the task is he wasnt cowed by the task. He didnt have a performance history like Thibodeau has now, but listen to these very first words he delivered his very first day on the job and after that ask yourself: Why does that sound so familiar?
” Anytime you enter into a circumstance you think about ways you can improve your club,” Thibodeau stated Thursday, the day he formally took control of the reins of the Knicks. “You begin with the players you have, your internal advancement is paramount. So we begin there and include skill in the draft, were also looking in complimentary firm to include skill, and were looking to trade to add skill. Theres four ways to enhance the group. And well take a look at all of them.”
Simple, maybe, but thats precisely the kind of back-to-basics starting point a group like the Knicks most requirements. Speaking of the gamers he acquires now, Thibodeau said, “But I thought there were some players that really stepped up, and did an excellent task.
Possibly it wouldve made a distinction if there had been a star-spangled interview at Madison Square Garden or up at the Knicks headquarters in Westchester. Possibly in those normal confines, adorned in a nice fit, freed to use his dais as a bully pulpit, Tom Thibodeau wouldve carried the day with oration and charm.
There wasnt then. There isnt now. If the Knicks are to be rehabbed it will come a brick at a time, a nail at a time, a piece at a time. Van Gundy was a major basketball male, and Thibodeau is a severe basketball male, so severe he often makes Van Gundy look like Jackie the Joke Man by comparison.
Although, honestly, that doesnt rather seem to be Thibodeaus category.
” Some coaches think in offering gamers a day off,” Van Gundy said in the old Philadelphia Spectrum on March 8, 1996. I think video games are won in practice. My task is to create a winning, working environment.
” There is no simple response.”
Others recently have accepted this job and spoken in grandiloquent tones about what their vision was for the franchise, and for the future, and they have actually overwhelmed with the generalities of optimism– which, at the end of the day, translates mostly to wishful thinking. Thibodeau speaks mainly in specifics, and with the authority of a male who has won 59 percent of his games as an NBA coach. He subscribes to five core worths: rebounding, defense, low turnovers, sharing the ball and using the paint– passing or penetration– as a basic weapon.
Tom ThibodeauThibodeau is a no-nonsense coach with a no-nonsense personality, and if he can joke about how unexpected it was to some when they heard he in fact took a vacation to Miami this year, fried and sat on a beach, he likewise makes no pretense that hes anything other than laser-focused and concentrated on the job at hand.
Winning basketball games thereafter is a lot better, and a lot more meaningful.
In a great deal of ways, then, this was a perfect way for Thibodeau to state hi in the summer season of 2020, on a Zoom call, in a Knicks golf shirt, a Brady Bunch square on a computer system screen with castmates Leon Rose and Scott Perry. It is difficult to win journalism conference when that interview is on Zoom, anyhow, so there was no requirement to attempt.
The Knicks need serious now. They require major. They long for serious. Tom Thibodeau brings that to the dance, and that winning percentage, and a specific belief in how this ought to all be done. Excellent. Its about time.
Tom Thibodeau brings that to the dance, and that winning percentage, and a specific belief in how this ought to all be done.
