Post#95 » by MrSparkle » Mon Jul 27, 2020 9:44 pm
Don't get me wrong, Wiggins isn't a total Bennett bust and KAT can fill a stat sheet, but what an absolutely terrible super-max tandem to build around.
Wolves were 19-45 this season. Thibs got fired last year with a 19-21 record in a much tougher West (healthy Durant GSW, better Spurs/Kings/Blazers... Lakers/Mavs were losers but still had superstars Lebron and Luka). When he took the job in 2016, he had the younger version of the Wolves at 31 wins.
My point is that Thibs deserved this 3rd shot. He's still pretty successful, if you look at his total head coaching results. I mean, GarPax's trigger-point was that he lost a series to Lebron, with 35yo Pau missing the last 2 games with injury, verge-of-huge-career-decline Noah/Kirk/Dunleavy running out of gas, and Rose having a career crisis against Dellavedova (and in a way, I don't blame Derrick for taking his foot off the gas - besides Beverley, I can't think of a more physical/"oops-I-accidentally-injured-you" PG to play against).
Similarly, that Butler meltdown wasn't Thibs' fault as much as Taylor's. Clearly Jimmy had a problem with Wiggins, and the owner somehow bet his franchise on a soft, high usage, 4th-year player coming off a 13 PER season with plenty of red flags (shooting, handles, efficiency, defense, toughness, work ethic).
I get that having a maniac boss can be tiring. But in his cases, he's pushed underachievers beyond their limits. NYK are classic underachievers, and their team has no superstar prospects on the horizon. He should at the very at least be able to get them to tune out the noise of MSG and put out a better product.