Basketball is his only passion, and it's his whole life

Tom Thibodeau is out of class, this news is not particularly unexpected, yesterday I said that if the Knicks want to change, replacing Thibodeau is the fastest way, but I didn't expect the Knicks to make up their minds so quickly.

When the Nuggets fired Malone, Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue joked, "If you look at this trend right now, don't go for the Coach of the Year award, don't go for the championship, because you're going to be fired in two years." It's a brutal industry, and Coach Malone is arguably one of the best in the league. ”

Although it is a joke, it also reveals something. Sometimes leading a team to get good results is not necessarily a good thing. Imagine if the Knicks and Celtics were to tie seven and eventually lose, Thibodeau's position should still be secure.

It was precisely because he reached the Eastern Conference finals, and then met a team that restrained himself and completely exposed his coaching ceiling, that Thibodeau's Knicks career came to an end. The ceiling of a team is often determined by the head coach, and the position of the head coach can be changed at any time.

Thibodeau is a good coach, but he is still far from greatness. Still, he's already one of the Knicks' best head coach of the century. The 13 coaches before him combined for only one series, and he has won four rounds in recent years, reaching the Eastern Conference semifinals twice and reaching the Eastern Conference finals this year for the first time in 25 years.

Notable Knicks coaches in history include Pat Riley, Van Gundy Jr., and now Thibodeau. Interestingly, the three are also in the same vein, Van Gundy Jr. studied with Pat Riley for a few years, and then Thibodeau also worked as an assistant coach under Van Gundy, which was the first few years of Yao Ming's career.

The teams Thibodeau has coached have very obvious strengths and weaknesses. The advantage is that it can keep the lower limit, it is always quite competitive, a playoff regular, good defense, and the team's mental attributes are tough. Thibodeau's shortcomings are poor on-the-spot command, short rotations, dislike of using newcomers, and rigid offense relying on core guards.

Thibodeau is the representative of the old school of coaches in the league today, of course, another meaning of the old school is that it has not kept up with the trend of the times. For a 67-year-old who has been a basketball coach for most of his life, it is almost impossible to change the basketball philosophy he has pursued all his life.

He has loved basketball since he was a child and made the varsity team in high school, but with his basketball talent, this is already the ceiling he can reach on the court. In the 80s of the last century, after graduating from Thibodeau, he stayed at the school as a teaching assistant. In '89, Thibodeau got the opportunity to work as an assistant coach in Minnesota, and his NBA career began.

Thibodeau has been an assistant coach for 21 years. He has served as an assistant coach for the Timberwolves, SuperSonics, Spurs, 76ers, Knicks, Rockets and Celtics, assisting many famous coaches, and his defensive philosophy has built one defensive team after another, the best of which is the championship team in '08.

After 21 years as an assistant coach in the league, he finally got a head coach job in 2010 and won the Coach of the Year award in his first season. Thibodeau led that Bulls to a league-best 62-20 record that propelled Rose to the top.

Thibodeau has only been a head coach for three teams in his career, he was sacked due to conflicts with management during the Bulls, and Timberwolves because of the infighting between Butler and Towns and Wiggins. At the Knicks, it was the management that really made him see his ceiling.

Thibodeau has been a huge improvement for a brand new team, winning the best coach in his first season with the Bulls and Knicks. Perhaps with this resume, Thibodeau can get his next coaching job. Of course, Thibodeau's career as an NBA coach may end here.

In the NBA, no one dares to say that they love basketball more than Thibodeau. Thibodeau's love for basketball has been throughout his life, from the first time he touched basketball as a child, basketball has been the whole of his life, and many people know that Thibodeau is still unmarried and focuses only on basketball.

He had a fiancée, but Thibodeau eventually gave up on the marriage, explaining, "If I were to be a basketball coach, there would be no room for women in my life." ”

"I've never had a manager who was so focused, he wasn't doing anything else, he didn't even have time to watch TV, Thibodeau wasn't going to do anything other than basketball," Rose said. It doesn't matter what time you call him, basketball is all he has in life. ”

Thibodeau is really doing one thing in his life, and doing it very well, his hobby is his profession, his profession is his life, his life. So in a sense, you can also understand that he is paranoid on the court, and only paranoia can make him so determined to do only one thing.

Interestingly, both Thibodeau and Carlisle began their coaching resumes in 1989, when Carlisle, who had just retired at the age of 30, also chose to become an assistant coach. Carlisle joined the Pacers coaching staff in '97 and Thibodeau joined the Knicks coaching staff in '95.

When the Pacers and Knicks met in the Eastern Conference finals in 1999 and 2000, Thibodeau and Carlisle served as assistant coaches on both teams. 25 years later, still in the Eastern Conference finals, the two former assistant coaches have become head coaches standing on the sidelines, continuing the grudge.

In Carlisle's showdown, Thibodeau lost convincingly. When Thibodeau had to take Shamet and Wright for a long rotation against the Pacers, perhaps he also felt a little lonely abandoned by the times.

And after being fired by the Knicks, the sense of being abandoned by the times became more and more intense, can this league still have a ship to carry Thibodeau? Can this little old man, who has only loved basketball all his life, stay here?