With the past 16 games that the Knicks went through, they have been set as 3-13. The Wednesday game is a memory the Knicks may want to forget because they were behind by 28 points. It was an impressive win for the Nets on that Wednesday game because they played without Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and Ben Simmons who are the star players of the Nets team. In the previous months, the Knicks originally had a good score of 9-0, but Thibodeau’s leadership may have some mixed feelings on how the Knicks performed in February.
When Thibodeau worked with the Minnesota Timberwolves, failure in the team also showed with the score of 47-35. Thibodeau’s leadership style has not changed much, yet the NBA has made a lot of progress since the 1980s. Thibodeau has not been recognized for good rotations as young players like Cam Reddish appeared less in the game compared to veteran players. RJ Barrett played in most of the game time. One example is when the Knicks were competing against the Nuggets. With a couple of minutes remaining in the game, he was convinced to throw RJ Barrett back in action.
Thibodeau’s leadership refuses to adapt to newer times when the coaches get more personal with their players. Like a military leader, Thibodeau is strongly focused on the performance, limiting opportunities for younger players to be on the field. He doesn’t want to conduct load management where medical research can show when the players need to rest or protect themselves from a potential injury in the game. Some players are not worth the risk to stick in multiple games for so long.
On the other hand, Thibodeau has had success as a coach in the past and maybe the year of 2022 might just not be good for him. He won Coach of the Year twice and the performances of Julius Randle and RJ Barrett made the public excited for the potential success of the Knicks. The next game will be against the Miami Heat on Friday, February 25th, at 7:30PM EST. Let’s see what the next game will hold for the Knicks.
