Sad news: The Tom Thibodeau head coach has been suspended after a clear indication that he is having an…
After the New York Knicks’ terrible, awful, and sorry excuse for a basketball game loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday night, there’s no need to hold back.
This is not a lightly veiled message. Jokes are just that—jokes, and who doesn’t enjoy a good snarky meme? However, I sincerely dislike advocating for people to be fired from their positions, even if they are highly compensated and the industry requires dispensability.
Furthermore, this isn’t an attempt to stir up controversy in the comments with statements like “Knicks for clicks!” or to be tense or explosive after just seven games. To be honest, this isn’t a particularly bold, fiery, or even slightly controversial opinion.
Rather, it is an entirely rational and composed reaction to what we have both both this and last season. Not only is it reasonable, but it’s also required at this time unless something drastically changes.
It’s not all about losing to the Hawks on Wednesday. However, it is just the most recent example in an overwhelming volume of evidence that the status quo is failing.
After leading by as much as 23, New York ultimately lost by 13. This collapse was truly epic in scope:
It’s almost impressive how egregious and impressive it is to implode like this after two days of rest. You’ll all have different degrees of guilt about Thibs for this loss and all the others.
He doesn’t engage in any gaming. However, he is expected to oversee them, adjust to them, and change as they go. He hasn’t, and it’s obvious he never will.
With the Knicks’ incomplete roster, Thibs is failing them and has to go.
To be sure, his failure to turn this team into a contender is not his most notable error. Not even with Jalen Brunson, New York was not built to compete with the East.
Thibs’s downfall stems from his stubbornness and everything that flows from it. He subtly presents a dearth of creativity and unending rigidity as continuity. That ploy is becoming stale.
The gaffe that New York had against Atlanta was a master class in all things dumb.
An adrenaline rush for humans As usual, Obi Toppin underperformed when it counted because Thibs detests breaking from the pattern. Or perhaps not:
How a quest for anything productive at all failed to result in more productive minutes for Toppin is incomprehensible. Robinson was not participating.
A standout player this season, Isaiah Hartenstein, didn’t have as much of an impact on the game in the second half and is still invisible on the defensive glass.
Is Thibs really that married to observing Julius Randle make poor decisions that lead to catastrophe? Of course, he could always play Toppin and Randle together. But he never does, so he won’t.
It’s simpler in theory than in practice to yank Randle for Toppin—or, in this instance, to keep rolling with the latter. Randle is paid similarly to a key member of the team.
However, he’s reverting after an encouraging season-opening performance in which he was contributing to a broader offensive ecosystem.
After the Knicks’ first three games, Randle received assists on nearly two-thirds of his baskets.
games. Over the last four games, that share has practically flipped in the opposite direction, and his overall time of possession corresponds with the rising number of touches that go unnoticed. He is shooting 3 of 22 jumpers for 13.6 percent during this time, including 0 of 11 from downtown.
His minute-recording is by no means egregious. Not that removing him from the starting five is a problem—we’ll get to that. What if, when you’re rolling in the second quarter, you didn’t replace Toppin with him?
Randle isn’t the only subject here. Additionally, Thibs has an unhealthy obsession with Evan Fournier. The Knicks were destroyed by that on Wednesday night:
