Pistons head coach J.B. Bickerstaff seemingly came to the defense of now-former Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau, without explicitly naming the team or coach, writes Matt Ehalt of The New York Post.
During a conversation on ESPN Radio’s “Joe & Q” on Friday, Bickerstaff was asked about the league-wide reaction to the coaching situation in New York. The Knicks fired Thibodeau after he led to a 51-win regular season and its first Eastern Conference Finals appearance in 25 years and have since been denied permission to speak to several currently employed head coaches around the NBA.
“I don’t want to call it the cherry on top, but it’s the final straw, I think, of what has happened this season and the level of respect that we feel coaches deserve versus what they are getting,” Bickerstaff said.
“When you are a coach, you feel like there is a job that you have been told to do,” Bickerstaff added. “And when you go out and do that job well, you should carry it over to the next year. If you have had past successes, that should envision future successes. You can’t guess what the future is going to look like with somebody new.”
There’s more out of New York:
- The Knicks received serious push-back when they attempted to talk with current Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd about their new head coaching vacancy, observes Ryan Dunleavy of The New York Post. Among the other teams New York reached out to, the team got similarly emphatic rejections, as ESPN’s Shams Charania recently detailed on The Rich Eisen Show (YouTube video link).“Out of the five rejections, some of the scenarios that I heard [were], you know, teams would just hang up,” Charania said. “They would say no—and hang up. Teams would have maybe some profanity, maybe there is some ‘F— no.'” In addition to Kidd, the Knicks reportedly also reached out to the Timberwolves, Rockets, Hawks and Bulls about poaching their current head coaches.
- Following a stellar five-year stint under Thibodeau that turned them back into perennial threats in the East, the Knicks must nail this next head coaching hire, opines Steve Popper of Newsday (subscriber link). Popper notes that, though New York was ridiculed after being rejected in all five of its initial bids for rival coaches, sources told him that Kidd and Chicago coach Billy Donovan were still potentially in the running. Popper takes stock of some free agent candidates for the gig, including Taylor Jenkins, Mike Brown, Michael Malone, Mike Budenholzer and Frank Vogel.
- In case you missed it, the Knicks are now seen as a long shot to acquire 15-time All-Star Suns forward Kevin Durant in a trade.
Coaches get guaranteed money. While i agree it sucks getting fired and blamed a lot of times for player’s failures. They also get paid the full contract and are set financially for life.
Not a matter of coaches getting their guaranteed money. In this case, it’s another indication that ownership doesn’t know what it’s doing to get a championship at The Garden. Firing a coach after giving them a 3 year extension signals to any prospective coach OR player that while, yes, you’ll get your money, don’t get too attached to the neighborhood. Self respecting people won’t put themselves through that
I agree that it looks bad firing a guy you recently gave a three-year extension to, particularly when the faults they exhbited were no different than the ones we’ve seen over the years, but the worst thing you can do is embrace sunk cost fallacy. That prior mistake should not be overly influential on future decision-making.
As for the human side of things, I do think it’s a balancing act trying to put the best team on the floor while respecting individuals and their past contributions. Lean too far into the former and you could put off some potential hires. Still, when push comes to shove I ultimately think you have to act decisively in the direction you think is best, especially with respect to an individual who has shown little inidication of the kind of growth needed to give you sufficient hope for the future.
I appreciate your opinion on this. However, an Eastern Conference Final appearance and a rise in wins year after year is growth, IMO. Decisive decision making is an absolute must when major decisions are at stake. Firing a guy is one thing. Firing a guy that made progress over his tenure with no apparent plan after you do it is another. To me, it shows ineptitude.
Dolan doesn’t care about salaries. The real issue here is. Why ?? after the best 5 yrs you’ve had in 30 yrs. All the real reasons haven’t come out yet. All the players love Thibs. Except the bench. Towns is only one who has been quite. We haven’t gotten the whole styyet. And fact that it looks like this was sudden. And there is no clear road here. Shows Dolan meddling. Which is a bad sign for Knick fans.
Bickerstaff should remember that, ultimately, it is the PLAYERS that get the job done, not the coaches. Sure, head coaches can play a significant role in getting those players to perform optimally, but to not give them any credit here is deceptive. And as we all know the Knicks roster has plenty of pure talent. Success should be the expectation, not a surprise.
This is nothing more than head coaches supporting other head coaches, cops supporting other cops, teachers supporting other teachers, etc. I get it—you feel more connected to and protective of those in your same profession—but there should be limits to that.
Thibs refused to address critical faults and got outcoached in the playoffs. That isn’t a rousing “success” to me. The Knicks, in turn, went against established protocol, which dictates you should waste your narrow window of contention keeping a guy less because you have faith in them moving forward and more because you feel you owe it to them. Heaven forbid teams decide to do so. Thibs will be fine.
But by your logic, it seems like maybe the players didn’t get it done and the coach got fired.
I’m with Bickerstaff on this one. GMs have been firing successful coaches at the slightest rumbling of discord, then ending up with much worse options and a blown up franchise.
The most obvious example is Kenny Atkinson –> Steve Nash. The Nets were on the up and up, rushed their timeline with Kyrie and KD, then fired Atkinson because it didn’t pay off immediately. Look at them now; they’ve been terrible since, Nash is out of the league, and KD hasn’t done anything worth mentioning while Atkinson has the Cavs in a great place.
Same with Bud on the Bucks who won a chip then they fired him went all in on Doc, get Dame and now they look to be over.
Dear I say it but the nuggets might be next. Malone was a good coach and now what…
Yep, Bud to Doc is probably the next dumbest, totally agree.
Firing Malone was ridiculous, but at least Adelman seems competent. Knowing Malone was likely headed towards resigning makes it a little less dumb, but that’s still stupid timing.
The Jenkins firing was goofy and so was Nurse.
This just in: J.B. Bickerstaff has been fired as coach of the Detroit Pistons
/jk
In the end none of this matters. Any knowledge basketball person. Knows firing Thibs was a bad move. Especially when it looks like there is no plan in place. Fact is we need a coach now. This smells like a Dolan move. So again another terrible outcome from this. There is only one coach out there for this team. Michael Malone ……. he’s a Queens NYC native, has a ring, helped Jokic. Knicks biggest investment is Towns. Imo Thibs wasn’t on board for Towns. So just hire the guy who can help Towns the most.
Forget Donovan…Bulls said no to Knicks and are extending him…
JB just gets added to the long list of people who have coached, or otherwise understand the art of coaching, on this level that have seen fit to weigh in on Thibs’ firing. Not surprisingly, 100% of them are on the side of those that believe the firing was idiocy. Whereas, the other side is occupied exclusively by people who don’t have a clue about coaching, 2k’ers, fanboys and/or their equivalents in FO’s. Once in awhile, the most knowledgable people on a subject are wrong, and the most clueless on it are right (like a broken clock being right twice a day), but that’s never the way to bet or a basis on which to act.
NYK didn’t have a championship roster last season, but the shortfalls were discrete enough to be covered by organic maturation and a good offseason. Coaching was a team strength, the kind only a coach’s history with a group can create. Now, coaching is almost certainly going to be a weakness or (at best) a neutral, and the roster has to be re-evaluated with, and in light of, a new head coach. The hire is important, or can be, in that it can mitigate or aggrevate the damage. But, unfortunately, they appear to be preparing to go in the latter direction.