After quarrelling with the head coach star player makes shocking announcement today…..
Tom Thibodeau brought a three-peat to the New York Knicks, but not in the way fans envisioned.
For the third straight season, the New York Knicks head coach won the dubious honor of standing as the NBA head coach that opponents are least likely to play for in the annual anonymous player poll conducted by Sam Amick and Josh Robbins of The Athletic.
Not only does Thibodeau retain his title, he’s apparently fortifying his lead: Thibodeau was over 37 percentage points ahead of runner-up Doc Rivers (Milwaukee), his largest margin of victory to date.
The notion of Thibodeau overworking his veterans appeared to come into play: one player said he was “too old for those practices” while another claimed that Thibodeau was “playing everyone 48 minutes.”
Thibodeau, who has brushed off criticisms about his rotation earlier this season, will likely be fine with his results doing the talking:
despite several major injuries (including a season-ending shoulder ailment for three-time All-Star Julius Randle) and a turnstile roster, Thibodeau guided the Knicks to their best season in over a decade, reaching the 50-win and second-seed landmarks for the first time since 2013.
Thibodeau’s proteges are more than happy to come to his defense: Josh Hart publicly ripped the fact that Thibodeau was excluded from the list of NBA Coach of the Year candidates released on Sunday while first-year New Yorker Donte DiVincenzo sang his praises in a report from Fred Katz of The Athletic.
