🚨 BREAKING NEWS 🚨 Knicks fire head coach Tom Thibodeau | SportsCente

🚨 BREAKING NEWS 🚨 Knicks fire head coach Tom Thibodeau | SportsCente

An absolute stunner in the NBA. Breaking news into Sports Center. Sham Shirani, our NBA insider, joining us now. Shams, you just put this out moments ago. What do you have? Tom Thibido has been relieved of his duties as head coach of the New York Knicks. Sources tell me after five seasons as head coach of the Knicks, Tom Thibido is out. He led them to four playoff appearances in five years as head coach. They went to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 25 years. They won back-to- back 50 plus win seasons for the first time since the 1990s. But I’m told the Knicks believe that they need a new voice, someone that can take them to the next step of the organization’s future, which they hope is an NBA championship. This is a team that obviously has talent. Jaylen Brunson, Connie Towns, Male Bridges, Ojanobi. They feel like they need a new voice and that’s what the decision was made today by Nick’s ownership. James Dolan, Leon Rose informed Tom Thibido today that he has been let go as head coach. All right, so Shams, I’m going to I’m going to break this down in a couple of segments because one, you we talk about the patience and getting the Knicks over the hump. First time they’ve been to the Eastern Conference Finals in 25 years. That says to me that no one has been able to do it. You get so close by taking out the Celtics and working your way to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 25 years. How was that not viewed enough by the organization to maybe give it another run? How did they come to the decision after the season they just had? The Knicks evaluated that based on what they feel Tom Thibido to be as their head coach for whatever reason that they that they need a new voice that can take them and and be able to potentially make different adjustments, be able to provide a different perspective. We saw Tom Thibido late in this series against the Pacers start to go more to his bench, go eight, nine players deep. He he went nine players deep a couple of times in those critical moments down the stretch of this Pacers Eastern Conference Final Series. Not something we had seen from him earlier in the playoffs or in past years trusting his bench. Players like Dylon Wright, players like, you know, changing the starting lineup as well, Mitchell Robinson coming in. So, there were adjustments made that you saw maybe something start to turn, but clearly the Knicks believed that whoever they go with as their next head coach potentially will have a little bit more leniency when it comes to their rotations comes to building the chemistry and camaraderie coming off the bench. But Tom Thibido gave such a great run for this Knicks team. I think they’re in a great position now. That’s what the Knicks believe. A lot of people, my phone is blowing up right now with executives, everyone around the league just stunned. But every player on this Knicks roster, you it felt like overperformed. You saw Jaylen Brunson become an AllNBA all-star guard. Cary Towns an AllNBA performer as well. A lot of Knicks players, Josh Hart as well, who tweeted out something positive about Tom Thibido. They all had great years under him, but clearly the Knicks did not feel like Tom Thibido was going to be the coach to take them over the top. Yeah, you beat me to it. Our next question was going to be I bet your phone is blowing up with reaction around the league. I was going to ask you for that reaction, but you just said it there. People are stunned. So here’s how you could look at this Shams. If people are stunned, they didn’t think this was going to happen. If New York is going to make this move after the season they just had, to me that says they’re making the move because they have someone in mind. Who do you believe that list and what do you believe that list is going to look like? Not sure yet which names are going to be on that list, but clearly it’s going to be someone that has potential pedigree championship wise, someone that has been able to take a team over the top. Their singular goal, I’m told, is how can we make the best hire to win a championship. That’s all that they’re thinking about. That’s all James Dolan, Leon Rose are thinking about is trying to go out and win a championship. They believed thoroughly this year that they had a team ready to win a championship. They were disappointed that they lost in the conference finals. I think that disappointment had a lot to do with the eventual firing of Tom Thibido today, but this is a Knicks organization. I I I expect if the last year and a half is any indication, I expect this team to be aggressive in terms of trades, and now they’re going to be aggressive in terms of finding their next head coach. How is Mike Malone viewed in NBA circles? Got Denver over the hump. That’s not an easy thing to do. Michael Malone is obviously was a colleague. I was around him at the Western Conference Finals. He seemed like he was really enjoying the media side of it and he he’s someone that that takes a lot of time and preparation. The one thing you know about Michael Malone, he always will build that chem chemistry camaraderie around his unit. Um don’t know where he’s at with it. The Knicks just made this decision today and so the next several days will be about ma mapping out just exactly who they’re going to go with. Uh I asked is there someone uh lined up? I was told no, not yet. That’s a process the Knicks will begin in earnest here very soon. So Shams, when you look at it big picture now, because the East was loaded, the Cavaliers looked like to be the best team in the Eastern Conference in in the NBA, apart from Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City did their part. They’re in the finals and and now you’ve got you’ve got Cleveland, they’re really good. You’ve got the Celtics. They’re going to be really good. They’ve got a good nucleus. The Knicks are hanging around there. So, where do the Knicks position themselves now after making a franchise altering move in and firing a head coach that got him a place they hadn’t been in 25 years? Where do the Knicks now stack up in the East with moves that they have to make? Only time will tell. Is the grass greener on the other side? Because when you have a coach like Tom Thibido, you know, you have a level of success year in and year out. you know, he’s good for it, but they felt like they needed a new voice. But will that new voice that they bring in, will that person be able to turn this unit, Jaylen Brunson, Kante Towns, the group, if they stick with this team another year and say, “Listen, the coach was the problem. We will bring in a new voice, we’re going to give this iteration another run.” Only time will tell. Will this unit take a step back? Have they peaked? Have they hit their ceiling? Or will a new coach be able to turn this to another level? But remember earlier in the year, Mikuel Bridges did make some comments about Tom Thibido trusting the bench more and allowing other players to feel like they had a presence. It’s hard not to look where we’re at today and not think about those comments because when you have an active player come out like that as he did in that moment, it has to have some level of meaning. And they were over it. They had moved on. But it is something to look at. Yeah. When you say what you did earlier and you said that the reaction around the league, people are stunned. Then you have to start peeling back the layers and and one of them I mean could be connectivity with your players. I mean Tib’s a hard dude and so the connectivity you might have with your locker room the chemistry might not be fitting there and now they could look in free agency and find a guy that fits the culture. Do you believe at the end of the day players within the organization this is Jaylen Brunson’s team to think otherwise is is naive. Do you think there could have been maybe some rocky times with those two that maybe precipitated this move? I I I didn’t get the sense that this was a unit that had lost faith in Tom Thibido per se. I mean, we saw Jaylen Brunson’s comments after that game six loss in Indianapolis when he was asked about Tom Thibido and whether he felt Tom Thibido was the right coach for this team and it was as if he absolutely shunned the question. It it was as if he was shocked that question was even asked. He was just like, “Come on, like what are we talking about?” Yes, of course. Like Jaylen Brunson, from every everything I understand, he’s always been a Tom Thibo supporter. That’s someone who’s allowed him to thrive in this league as he he joined the Knicks as a point guard a few years ago. So, I think there were definitely players that that felt like Tom Thiro brought the best out of them. All right, Shams, you’ve got you’ve got 30 seconds to get ready for NBA today. You’re you’re going to be busy for the rest of the day. Then we’ll see you at 5:00 PM on Sports Center. Sean Shirani, the breaking news today. Tom Thibido out as head coach of the New York Knicks. I mean it I was like when he said the league is stunned that was the the knee-jerk reaction and you follow the next you’re next. Yeah. No, absolutely stunning. But you know what? He brought up a good point you know talking about male Bridges earlier in the season with those starters and those minutes get you thinking. You have to wonder what

ESPN NBA Senior Insider Shams Charania joins SportsCenter to discuss the breaking news of the New York Knicks firing head coach Tom Thibodeau.

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