An esteemed member of the NBA coaching circle believes Tom Thibodeau’s dismissal was nonsensical.
“Should he have been fired? Hell no,” Ty Lue, the current Clippers coach, said on the “Club Shay Shay” podcast. “I mean, it’s the first time they’ve been to the conference finals in 25 years. Twenty-five years! And so, the city was on fire, the fans were on fire. The players did a hell of a job. And Thibs did a hell of a job. And to take a team to their first [conference finals] in 25 years and then get fired, like, it just doesn’t make sense.”
Still with three years and over $35 million remaining on his Knicks contract, Thibodeau was surprisingly fired just a few days after his team was eliminated by the Pacers in Game 6 of the East finals.
The reasons were never explained on the record by the Knicks, other than a news release statement from team president Leon Rose that began, “Our organization is singularly focused on winning a championship.”
Lue, meanwhile, rejected the idea that Thibodeau should’ve been punished for losing to the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, an opponent that looked inferior on paper but caught fire in the playoffs.
Ultimately, Indiana fell one win short of the championship after Tyrese Haliburton blew out his Achilles in Game 7 of the Finals against the Thunder.
The Pacers also beat Doc Rivers’ Bucks and Kenny Atkinson’s Cavaliers in the playoffs.
“So everybody that Indiana beat, you want to fire their coach?” Lue, who was mentored by Thibodeau when they both worked on the Celtics staff over a decade ago, said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Lue, considered among the NBA’s elite coaches, indicated the Knicks circumstances bring unfair pressure to Thibodeau’s replacement, Mike Brown, who needs a rapid NBA Finals appearance to outshine his predecessor.
Lue compared it to his first head coaching opportunity with the Cavaliers in 2016, when he took over a squad that advanced to the NBA Finals the season prior. It worked out for Lue and the Cavs, who immediately won the championship.
But the bar was certainly high — and the Knicks, unlike the Cavaliers back then, don’t have the benefit of rostering a prime LeBron James.
“That’s a tough spot to be in,” Lue said.
Further defending Thibodeau, Lue dismissed the common critiques about minutes distributions and overworking players. As the Clippers coach, Lue handled two aging and brittle stars — Kawhi Leonard and Paul George — while accumulating winning records in each of his five seasons.
Before the last campaign, Lue hired Thibodeau’s good buddy and longtime colleague, Jeff Van Gundy, as an assistant.
“Whatever it takes. Do whatever it takes to win,” Lue said about the complaints about Thibodeau’s minutes distribution. “You don’t want guys to practice, now you don’t want guys to play? They already get games off, but you don’t want them to play minutes either?”
Whatever the reason for firing Thibs, Lue thought the decision was nuts.
“Like I said, I thought Thibs did a great job,” Lue said. “But you never know the inside of what’s going on with the organization. But everywhere he’s been, he wins. Everywhere. Chicago, Minnesota, Knicks, every team he’s been on has gotten better, you know? And to do that, I thought it was crazy.”