New Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau grew up in New Britain, Connecticut, and still owns his old home, 85 miles from the Knicks practice site in Tarrytown.
During Thursday’s introductory Zoom press conference, Thibodeau defined his new position as his “dream job”. He said it four times.
“This is a dream come true for me,” said Thibodeau. “This is my dream job. … Maybe part of this, I grew up in Connecticut. My father, my family, we grew up as a Knicks fan. I’ve been there before, I have excellent knowledge of New York. I think we have the best city in the world, the best arena and the best fans. I was there in the 90s and it was an incredible experience. ”
For the first time in nearly eight months, the Knicks officially have a permanent head coach. This was announced on the first day of the restart of the 22 NBA teams, as the Knicks try to restart their dead franchise which has lost the playoffs seven consecutive years.
Larry Brown once called the Knicks his “dream job” and left after a 17-65 disaster. Thibodeau is a former assistant coach of the glory days of the 90s who went on to become a marquee coach with the Bulls and even broke the Minnesota playoff drought in 2018.
But now Thibodeau may face a bigger task with James Dolan’s dying Knicks. Asked how to get around a perennial mess, Thibodeau didn’t fail to mention a championship, which the team hasn’t won in 47 years.
“You don’t make big jumps without going through each phase,” he said. “So I think the first step is to establish work ethic and the way we want to play. There is a lot of work to be done. One of the most important things when studying a team is just looking at efficiency and when you see yours [net rating] it’s a minus-6.54, you realize there’s a lot of work. And we hope to get players to play for each other and start building those habits.
“Of course the ultimate goal is to bring a championship back to the city, where it’s synonymous with wins and championships, and it’s in New York.”
Knicks president Leon Rose will be safe if Thibodeau’s old school ways don’t work. Rose, her former agent at the Creative Artists Agency, said there was a “level of comfort” in hiring Thibodeau because of their long-term relationship.
Rose called 62-year-old Thibodeau “the perfect candidate for this job from the point of view of the demand for responsibility, it will develop and create a winning culture”.
“We hired not only a great basketball coach but an elite coach,” said Rose. “Its principles and goals embody everything that Knicks basketball represents.”
On Saturday, Thibodeau agreed to conclude a five-year deal. Some insiders in the league estimate that the deal could be worth at least $ 25 million, even with a pandemic discount that will likely cause his Knicks debut to be played without fans in attendance.
Thibodeau thanked Dolan in his prepared observations and listed 15 coaches from whom he had taken the news – from Jeff Van Gundy to Bill Musselman. And Thibodeau called the former Knicks coaches with whom he worked “the best staff ever assembled. Guys like Brendan Malone, Don Chaney, Jeff Nix, Steve Clifford, Andy Greer, Mike Malone – many coaches who are in the league today. ”
Thibodeau led the Timberwolves to the playoffs, but the allegations it did not connect to young Minnesota players led to his dismissal in January 2019.
Thibodeau declined to go into details about Minnesota.
“It was more of a total rebuild, a team that hadn’t won much for a long time,” he said. “So I think you take it from every experience, but every experience is different.”
Sources indicated that Thibodeau was intrigued by the potential opening in Houston, but said he was attracted to the Knicks because of the flexibility of the hat and their wealth of draw choices (seven first rounds in the next four drafts).
“The three main reasons why this job was so attractive to me was the current list we have now is young and talented and there is room for growth,” said Thibodeau. “It’s exciting for me. Second, it’s working for Leon and Wes [William Wesley], two people I’ve known for a long time. And thirdly are all the draw choices that have been acquired and also the hood space. We have many different ways to improve the team. ”
Thibodeau has tried to dispel his reputation as a basketball-obsessed and moodless instructor sergeant who has no other life. He joked with this longtime writer Knicks, saying “I can’t believe you’re still around” and denied that all he did during unemployment was visit other teams’ practices – which he did in abundance .
“I went on vacation a few times,” said Thibodeau. “I know people don’t think they do. But I ran away and lay on a Miami beach for a couple of weeks. ”
The Knicks interviewed 11 candidates for seven weeks, but Thibodeau was reported to be the leader all the time.
“We have done due diligence in this research,” said Rose. “We were open and listened to by many different candidates with various philosophies. The accuracy of the research is what we felt deserved by the fans. We wanted to do it well. “
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