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Rose’s first big move was one of the organization’s great triumphs. Tom Thibodeau, a no-frills head coach, was hired after a search that included Jason Kidd and Kenny Atkinson, among others. There was some haggling over who Thibodeau had to accept on his staff — and the deal nearly fell apart at the last minute — but ultimately they agreed on a five-year contract.
Not long after the Knicks were bounced in Game 6 at Indiana, Dolan and the front office conducted exit meetings with players that reinforced what they were probably already thinking – Thibodeau needed to go. Dolan, in particular, desired a change because he felt Thibodeau lacked in three notable areas – collaborating with the staff and players (the head coach adopted the One Voice philosophy), player development (he didn’t utilize his bench enough) and flexibility (“We needed to evolve beyond the old traditional coaching formulas,” Dolan said).
“We loved Thibs, we really did, I held him in high regard,” Dolan said. “It would not surprise me at all, by the way, if Thibs comes back and coaches a championship team because I think you could still win that way.” Sometimes you can see the “but” coming a mile away. “Thibs was kind of old style. Right? Like Red Holzman, right, everything comes through me, and I’ll guide us through. He’s very good at that, but that sort of obviated the need for all these other people. Mike Brown had a different view. He had a different approach. And you look at our team, in the Finals. Everyone was healthy.
Yaron Weitzman: So there's this idea floating around that one reason the Knicks turned things around was because James Dolan was so consumed by the Sphere that he stopped meddling with the basketball operation. Easy narrative. Also false. A few examples: 1. Dolan regularly met with Thibs and Mike Brown in his office after games — and not briefly. Ask any reporter who covered games at MSG. Postgame press conferences started late all the time because the coach was in with Dolan. 2. Did everyone forget that Dolan was in player exit meetings last year? Or that he was the driving force behind the decision to replace Thibs? That, obviously, turned out to be the correct call. But firing your head coach after the team's best season in 25 years is not the move of a hands-off owner. 3. His son Quentin doesn't just work for the team. He's the Senior Vice President of Player Performance/Science Leader. That's not a title-only role. There are plenty of other examples. These are just three public ones. None of this is a criticism of Dolan. But the idea that he faded into the background in recent years isn't accurate.
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This quote couldn’t have been easy for Thibodeau to read, just as Dolan’s newly released video — a pre-playoff pep talk for the team — couldn’t have been easy to see and hear. The owner acknowledged in his speech that the Thibs firing “shocked the world” and that if the Knicks failed in the postseason, the decision-makers would be second-guessed forever. Dolan told the players the change was made because “Leon and I believe that you, the team and the rest of the organization needed to be heard more, needed to work together more, not just led or dictated to. And coach Thibs was a great coach, brilliant, etcetera, but we thought you needed a coach that would pull you together, that would have you play as a team.”
Though Thibodeau didn’t respond to The Athletic’s message seeking comment, one of his favorite players, Taj Gibson, told SiriusXM NBA Radio that he had spoken to the coach and that “he didn’t have any kind of malice in his heart. He didn’t have any kind of hatred. He was so happy for the guys. He was just really so proud of the guys and what they accomplished.”
Before the season, The Athletic reported that Thibodeau was deeply wounded and “had a sense of betrayal” after his firing and believed some people in the organization he had helped over the years didn’t return that loyalty. On Tuesday, a friend of Thibodeau’s said he is “genuinely very happy for the players and his guys” for winning a historic championship. “But Tom is still hurt that the decision-makers made it appear he needed to be replaced.”
“I talked to Thibs (Saturday) and the first thing we talked about was that he had no malice in his heart, he didn’t have any kind of hatred,” Gibson said during a Sunday appearance on SiriusXM’s NBA Radio. “He was so happy for the guys, he was just really proud of the guys for what they accomplished.”
Let's Talk Knicks: Tom Thibodeau’s full page ad in the New York Times thanks the entire Knicks organization and the fans. “Watching you support our team, and seeing the Garden ignite with that incomparable Knicks energy, is something I will never forget.”
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By that point, Rose had represented both Brunsons as an agent. When Leon left for the Knicks, son Sam Rose joined Jalen Brunson's representation team. In 2022, less than a month before Jalen Brunson was set to hit free agency, Leon Rose hired Rick Brunson as an assistant coach on Tom Thibodeau's staff. "I think Jalen had a loyalty to the Mavs because they'd drafted him, but the Knicks were his actual family," said a Mavericks source. "I don't think we fully grasped that."
What compelled you to issue your NBA Finals-or-Bust proclamation in January? James Dolan: That’s why I don’t do a lot of interviews — I’m usually very frank (smile). I did not go into the interview thinking, “Oh I’m gonna say this.” But it was on my mind, and I knew that the rest of the organization knew it too — we all knew it. We knew it from the moment that we said goodbye to Thibs (Tom Thibodeau) and we hired Mike (Brown), that we were gonna be in a hot spot because we just made the conference finals. We didn’t win, but you don’t make a change unless you’re expecting to do better. We didn’t change ’cause we wanted it to be worse! To me, it was a little obvious, so I just said it because it was obvious.
Marc Stein: "Mike Brown at best was the sixth choice for this job. Remember that the Knicks asked for permission to speak to Jason Kidd, Ime Udoka, Quinn Snyder, Chris Finch, and Billy Donovan. All of those teams said no. Jason Kidd and Billy Donovan both got contract extensions and no longer coach the teams where they were a year ago. It really looked like the Knicks fired Tom Thibodeau without a plan to replace the first coach who had taken them to the conference finals this century. For things to turn around to this degree, the teamwork, the way that team has come together, the way Karl-Anthony Towns has embraced a new role, the way Mikal Bridges, who has been so maligned for how many draft picks he cost the Knicks, and the level that he has been playing in these playoffs."
“He had big shoes to fill, because Thibs did an amazing job and gave us the experience and the education and the opportunity to show the world what we could do as a team,” All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns said after Game 3 against Cleveland. “When Mike came in, making the Eastern Conference finals was going to be the bar — minimum.”