Never before has Tom Thibodeau been this good.
Coach of the Year awards are already in Tom Thibodeau’s collection. In 2011, he achieved his first victory after taking over a Chicago squad that was at 41-41 and quickly leading it to 62 wins and a conference final berth.
When he took over a 21-45 Knicks squad and guided it to a 41-31 record and a shocking 4-seed in the East, he won for the second time in 2021.
In both cases, he accomplished the simplest prerequisite for that honor, which is to lead a squad that has just experienced hopelessness straight to success.
That makes the three front-runners for this year’s prize—Mark Daigneault of Oklahoma City, Chris Finch of Minnesota, and Jamahl Mosley of Orlando—ideal contenders.
Joe Mazzulla of Boston, who leads the most skilled squad in the league, is also included since he is far more experienced at the position in Year 2 than he was in his rookie campaign. Mazzulla would be the clear winner of the “Most Improved Coach” award if there was one.
As a result, Thibodeau is unlikely to add a third piece of hardware to his collection given that the Knicks have, for the most part, lived up to expectations this season.
As ironic as it may seem, the award is named for Red Auerbach, whose greatest talent was, in essence, matching expectations with the nine Celtics teams he coached to championships: maintaining excellence.
Auerbach’s proficiency at this level was rare among coaches. Red never had to go worst-to-first since he was a prolific doer.
Even though the Knicks have endured a seemingly endless string of ailments, Tom Thibodeau might not win a third Coach of the Year title.
This year, Thibodeau has a 1,000-to-1 chance of winning.
He refuses to. He probably won’t place in the top five.
And since he is a loud supporter of other coaches and gets great satisfaction from watching them win and get recognition, that’s probably okay with him as well.
From a day-to-day perspective, Thibodeau’s work here has been the best of his career. That is quite a statement.
The simplest way to emphasize this is to look at how the Knicks have fared since Mitch Robinson’s injury in December and into January, when Julius Randle and OG Anunoby added their names to the list of ailing players.
The Knicks are currently the #4 seed despite missing 60% of their starting lineup on most nights since late January.
The Knicks managed to win 40 games in 67 games, which is the fastest they’ve done since 2013. It’s also the second-fastest since 2001. Even so, Thibodeau actively downplays his role in it, emphasizing his team’s unwavering faith in Next Man Up.
A few weeks ago, he said, “You have to grasp opportunities when they are there for you.” “And some of our guys are like that.”
Still, it’s not as simple as plug-and-play. It’s sometimes tough for injured teams to muster the resources necessary to compete.
Before we get too critical of the Nets, consider what has transpired in Brooklyn each time misfortune has befallen them this season.
They give up, rather than simply losing. Actually, throughout the league, that is more the rule than the exception.
Before the Kings retribution game, Donte DiVincenzo and Tom Thibodeau had a brief conversation.
One of those games occurred as recently as March 10, when the Sixers embarrassed the Knicks 79-73 in the Garden.
During the entire 48-minute period that evening, it seemed as though the Knicks had finally given in to the burden of ongoing absences.
Perhaps people wanted to give Thibs a chance to show off the team later. He didn’t. He had a peculiar philosophical bent.
“Playing as bad as that isn’t going to win you many games,” he stated.
Since then, the Knicks have gone 4-0, with a terrific 3-0 start to their final West Coast trip of the season coming up on Thursday night in Denver. Thibodeau is not a rookie in this arena.
He is the most knowledgeable about the peculiarities of the NBA marathon, so he believes that if he performs his duties effectively, his team will be able to move past the bad nights and not get too caught up in the good ones.
After Thibodeau started him against the Warriors in San Francisco on a hunch, Deuce McBride declared late on Monday, “It starts at the top.”
McBride scored a career-high 29 points and played excellent defense when it was his chance to protect Steph Curry. “Coach Thibs sets the tone for us every day by getting us ready.”
