Clyde_Style wrote:Chanel Bomber wrote:Clyde_Style wrote:
Sure, you can be holistic about it and say specifically what is or is not within Thibs control, but even if you discount the shortcomings of the roster I see no reason whatsoever to cut him any slack. He has been terrible this season. His in-game decisions are consistently bad and he rarely can diagram a good play coming out of a time-out. Overall, Thibs is a failure this season regardless of whether the FO failed him
I agree that Thibs has been awful this season.
Still stuck with his conventional line-ups and fixed rotations. Still married to his sacrosanct rim protection no matter the situation. Still holding IQ and Obi to a different standard than the rest of the team. Threw Randle to the wolves by leaving him on the floor in the 4th quarter of a game that was already decided shortly after the thumbs down incident - thus unnecessarily adding fuel to the fire. Shamed a respected player in Kemba by pulling him from the rotation overnight despite the lack of point guard options on the roster. The list goes on and on.
But I'm not blaming the inefficiency of the starting line-up entirely on him. I think it is mostly the byproduct of this team's roster construction, in addition to the regression of some of the players.
Let’s put it this way
If you had a better roster you could probably live with Thibs for a while longer, though it would never optimize that roster
Whatever the roster is next year, replacing Thibs with an up and coming talented coach would be ideal
I think Thibs has earned the right to coach another season, unless he has hurt his reputation around the league beyond repair or in a way that is clearly detrimental to the franchise (such as players not wanting to come to the Knicks to play under him).
Even good coaches sometimes have bad years - not that I consider Thibs a good coach overall.
I'd rather have Kenny Atkinson here, especially with the need for a rebuild getting more obvious by the day, but maybe if you trade Randle and cut down the veteran presence to a minimum (say Rose, Taj and maybe just one other veteran player) then Thibs would be forced to develop some of the youth he has at his disposal (particularly IQ and Obi).