More so than any NBA coach, Tom Thibodeau gets blamed for injuries and judged for trying too hard.
Winning, it seems, is weirdly secondary, as fans and media obsess over the minutes played column rather than the final score.
A small part of it is understandable. His garbage-time strategy feels excessive (we’ll get into that later). There’s also a worry that the Knicks are built more for the regular season and will flame out in a seven-game playoff series, as a few of Thibodeau’s teams in Chicago did. No team wants to peak in January.
But the playoff concerns are a talent problem, not a coaching problem.
Plus, the minutes stuff is wildly overblown.
Jalen Brunson was 10th in the NBA in total minutes played heading into Valentine’s Day. No other Knick cracked the top 38. Before this season, the Knicks, under Thibodeau for three campaigns, were exceptionally healthy compared to the rest of the league.
So why is Thibodeau constantly under the microscope over his minutes played?
Because his team plays hard and wins games it shouldn’t in the regular season? Because his former Bulls players were injured later in their careers? Because he never had the talent to beat LeBron James in the playoffs? A lot of it is perplexing.
I spoke with Stan Van Gundy, the former NBA head coach and current TNT broadcaster, about this subject recently, and he, as you might expect, backed Thibodeau with the following line: “Winning is the most important thing.”
What's happening on and off the Garden court
Sign up for Inside the Knicks by Stefan Bondy, a weekly exclusive on Sports+.
Thank you
Ultimately, coaches are fired and re-hired based on their records. Executives have the luxury of selling hope as well.
Van Gundy noted how fans, executives and trainers are blinded by a belief that all minutes are created equally, as if Jacob Toppin can replace Julius Randle for long stretches. Put another way: In 2018-19, the last full season before Thibodeau arrived, the Knicks spread out their minutes like no other. They had zero players in the top 79 in total minutes. Everybody had fresh legs.
And they went 17-65.
David Fizdale rightfully was panned as the worst Knicks coach since…(never mind, Derek Fisher was fairly recent)…and fired less than two months into his following season.
Now the Knicks are on their way to their third winning season in four years — with zero players averaging more than 36 minutes — and this is somehow the work of a madman.
No, Thibodeau does not believe in load management with games. But he has essentially stopped holding practices with these Knicks. The last time they held a full session was Jan. 22. There needs to be an admission from the minutes police that the accusations are more about reputation than reality with Thibs.
My one gripe with Thibodeau’s playing-time strategy is in garbage time. Basically, Thibodeau doesn’t believe it exists. We’ve heard before from the coach about the time he witnessed Tracy McGrady score 13 points in 33 seconds — way back in 2004 with the Rockets — and how that traumatized the coach enough to live by the mantra, “No lead is safe.” That’s not true, of course. Some leads are safe. And many leads are safe enough to pull the starters.
As an amateur doctor and dedicated WebMD reader, I can declare that injuries are more likely to happen at the end of games — especially blowouts — when bodies are tired and focus is at its lowest.
Van Gundy agreed, but explained how navigating garbage time can be tricky. For starters, he agreed with Thibodeau that big leads are fickle with the 3-point explosion. Also, Van Gundy said he never wanted to remove his starters before the opposing coach did. That can lead to a game of chicken with neither side waving the white flag.
Van Gundy didn’t insert veterans into garbage time without their approval first. I think we also saw that over the past two seasons with Thibodeau and Evan Fournier.
“Young players, I don’t care,” Van Gundy said. “That’s their job.”
This is Bojan Bogdanovic’s second go-around as a professional basketball player in NYC. I covered his first, as luck would have it.
Back in 2011, he was a second-round pick for the New Jersey Nets (New Jersey is not a typo), and expectations were low.
He idolized Drazen Petrovic, a fellow Croatian and former Net. But Bogdanovic wasn’t deemed ready for the NBA, especially for a Nets roster that was loading up on high-priced veterans. So it took Bogdanovic three years before he left Europe.
His introduction to the NBA was with Lionel Hollins, an old-school, no-nonsense coach even by 1970s standards.
There was no filter with Hollins, no handouts. Bogdanovic played less than 24 minutes per game as a rookie with just 7.4 shot attempts.
“That was a little tough for him, that was tough,” Billy King, the Nets GM at the time, said in a telephone interview. “But I think it was good for him in the sense of not giving him everything, and he had to earn it.”
King had traded a future second-round pick and cash to move into the 31st spot for Bogdanovic’s draft rights, a solid maneuver given the way the forward’s career played out.
King said Bogdanovic was identified by the Nets’ European scout, Danko Cvjeticanin, and brought Bogdanovic to New Jersey for a pre-draft workout.
“I wanted him to come back. He came back for a second visit because we liked him,” King said. “He had big hands. That’s one thing I noticed: huge hands.”
Unfortunately, the Nets were a dysfunctional mess by the time Bogdanovic arrived in the NBA. Joe Johnson hated Deron Williams. Hollins hated Williams. Williams tried to attack his coach during a meeting.
Bogdanovic outlasted them all in Brooklyn, flashing enough potential to recoup the Nets a first-round pick in a 2017 swap with the Wizards. That pick became Jarrett Allen, a future All-Star.
Bogdanovic bounced around and emerged as a true offensive difference-maker with the Pacers and Jazz, peaking in the season that was cut short because of the pandemic.
“I’m not surprised because if you watched him when he played in Europe, he always took big shots and loved the moment,” King said. “And in Europe, it can be hostile in some of those places he was playing. And I knew if he got a coach that gave him the confidence to go play, he’d be good.”
But Bogdanovic was traded from the Jazz in 2022 and entered Pistons purgatory. The team stunk for the entirety of his 1 ½-season tenure, and he basically disappeared from the NBA’s consciousness, except as a potential trade target.
Now he’s back in a pressurized situation and trying to impress another demanding coach in Thibodeau.
“The shooting piece is very important for us,” Thibodeau said.
As King said, Bogdanovic won’t replace OG Anunoby defensively — “He’ll try, but he can’t.” The offensive punch is needed, however, especially with Randle out. We’ll see if Bogdanovic’s defense turns off Thibodeau, as it did with Fournier, but Bogdanovic has more size and one-on-one shot creation.
Plus, he already played in this market.
King, by the way, who was the GM of the Nets and Sixers for about 15 years combined, just joined TurnKeyZRG, a global talent advisory firm, as its managing director in its Private Equity and Sports groups.
He was also an agent after his NBA executive career and repped Stan Van Gundy.
Want to catch a game? You can find tickets for all upcoming Knicks games here.
Before Josh Hart gave a prediction on how Jalen Brunson would fare in the All-Star weekend’s 3-point shootout, he wanted to hear about the competition.
“Dame, Malik Beasley, Jalen,” Hart said to The Post. “There’s got to be a white guy in it.”
This conversation was held without knowledge of Lauri Markkanen’s participation in the shootout, and we were assuming no white guys.
“No Donte [DiVincenzo], Duncan [Robinson], Grayson [Allen]?” Hart said. “I guess they’re trying to take the white guys out. Take away their event.”
Contrary to Hart’s joke, there have been a few 3-point contests without Caucasian contestants recently (2021, 2018, 2017, 2011).
But that’s not the point.
Hart gravitates toward the humorous and unserious version of any subject, throwing away all caution for the controversial. A couple weeks ago in this newsletter, we called him a kvetch.
Now we’re calling him a ballbuster — with a co-sign from his former college coach Jay Wright.
“Josh was the character, the ballbuster, the X-factor. You didn’t know what he was going to do,” Wright told The Post. “I never worried about him because he has such great character. But you never knew what he was going to do or say.”
As far as the 3-point contest, Brunson comes in at +600 betting odds, according to FanDuel. The other contestants are Markkanen, Damian Lillard, Malik Beasley, Trae Young, Karl-Anthony Towns, Tyrese Haliburton and Donovan Mitchell.
A Knicks player has never won the event.
“Jalen’s always been a pretty good shooter,” Hart shrugged.