Tuesday was four weeks to the day since the Knicks fired Tom Thibodeau. Twenty-eight days later the Knicks remain in uber-deliberate mode toward replacing him, and a lot of fans are looking to their dictionaries, preemptively, to see if they see Mike Brown’s face under the definition of “upgrade.”

In the meantime, Leon Rose has helped to fix one of the things that reportedly doomed Thibodeau in the first place. He has strengthened his bench and lengthened his rotation. No need to stay with the dictionary on this one; this is what “irony” looks like.

You know what would’ve been the best motivator for Thibodeau to satisfy those who wanted him to more evenly distribute minutes? To have nine guys he could trust, implicitly, to hold the fort (and keep the lead) so that he didn’t have to sweat when his starters were cooling their heels on the bench. Most of last year, he had six of them.

He didn’t have what Brown — or whoever — will have.