Kendrick Perkins SOUNDS OFF on Knicks firing Tom Thibodeau: WHAT WAS HE SUPPOSED TO DO?! 😳

Kendrick Perkins SOUNDS OFF on Knicks firing Tom Thibodeau: WHAT WAS HE SUPPOSED TO DO?! 😳

Welcome to NBA today. We start our show with breaking news. According to our Sham Sharan, the New York Knicks, they have fired head coach Tom Tibido. Now Tibs, he helped the Knicks to reach their first Eastern Conference finals in 25 years. He made the playoffs in four of his five years and he led the team to consecutive 50- win seasons for the first time since the 1990s. Here alongside Andrea Carter, Shane Agum Shams is going to be joining us in just a moment, but this is so fresh. She was just on Sports Center talking about this, so it’s going to take him a minute to dial into our show. Uh Jana, we were talking about this just before we came on air. I’m a little bit surprised that the New York Knicks made this move. Are you? I am not so surprised because there is so much pressure now in New York now that we’ve seen what their potential is getting to the Eastern Conference Finals. But I also do feel for coach Dibido because he tried he tried his best and we saw the evolution, right? This was a team that was predicated this year on offense, which his style is typically defensively. But when I look at the other teams in the NBA, the question is identity. When you look at the Pacers, we know what their identity is with offense and pace and movement and assist. When you look at the Thunder, you know what their identity is, defense. And they’ve also grown players, matured into MVPs and all defensive types of guys. When you look at the New York Knicks, their identity, the first thing that comes to my mind is a player, right? Jaylen Brunson in the clutch. That is not good enough in the NBA. you have to be able to be better and more versatile offensively, but then also defensively there were a lot of liabilities, whether it was Brunson as a small guard or even uh Carl Anthony Towns, his lack of being able to do anything other than rebound and affect shots. I heard that, you know, he only had one block shot in that entire Eastern Conference final series. Like that is unacceptable and that is his bread and butter. So, I do think that the lack of identity in the moments that mattered most and also finding someone to get them over the hump knowing that the East is wide open. I mean, Dame out, obviously, you think about those circumstances. Tatum out for the foreseeable future. Now, maybe that’s what they’re looking at, but that this that’s why I’m confused. And I know we see this happen with so many different franchises. We’ve seen them bring in a new coach to try to find an identity or try to create an identity. But now, you’re asking someone brand new who doesn’t know Jaylen Brunson and how Jaylen Brunson functions, who doesn’t know Carl Anthony Towns, who doesn’t know this team. You’re asking someone brand new to come in and try to create an identity. You’re asking a coach to come in that didn’t just lose to the Pacers and knows what that feels like and was standing on the sidelines experiencing those things. You’re asking someone brand new to do it. It doesn’t make sense to me. But what I will say is that the person coming in probably will have a lot of experience because the only thing the knock on Coach Tippido was the fact that he has never been to an NBA Finals. You’re probably going to look for a guy with NBA Finals experience, championship pedigree to try to get you over that hump that seems like he never was able to. Championship experience is great, but he doesn’t have any experience with this group. So either way, you’re bringing in championship experience from the past with an entirely different group and you’re trying to match that to this new team. To me, it just doesn’t make sense. In the New York Knicks statement that they just put out a couple of minutes ago, they underscore, right, that the reasoning that they are giving publicly here is we are singularly focused, they say, on winning a championship for our fans. And I think with the the injury to Jason Tatum, a lot of teams have looked around at the Indiana Pacers and said, “Okay, if the Pacers can win this with a collective of very good players, a lot of teams in the Eastern Conference, I’m hearing right now are looking around and saying, “Why not us? Why can’t we kind of replicate that sort of recipe here?” Our Kendrick Perkins is here as well. I know Perk, that you have a reaction to this, Chenate. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Tips didn’t deserve to lose his damn job. We not going to do this. and Malikica, you remember our production call that we had after game two and you remember I said together we had a lot but after but a after game two when Carl Anthony Towns was benched. I told y’all on the production call, I said if they lose this series, it may cause cause Tom Tibido to lose his job, right? Because of the game two and the benching of Carl Anthony Towns because of the relationship that Carl Anthony Towns have with Leon Rose and World Rod West that goes all the way back to the Kentucky days. Here’s my problem with the firing, right? What was Tom Timbero supposed to do? Call Anthony Towns, he started off the series, bro. He put you in the pick and roll. He He switched it. You were getting cooked in the switch. So, he tried to make an adjustment and he tried to challenge the guards to fight over the screens a little bit harder and put you in the drop coverage. You was getting cooked in that as well. You wasn’t getting back in transition. Jaylen Brunson outside of game five, what was it 68% of the time he was getting scored on. So, I’m looking at it and I’m saying to myself, what was Tom Timbero supposed to do at that moment? Right. When your two guys are physically don’t have it, right? They don’t have it. They don’t have the athleticism to keep up with the paces. Perk, what I’m trying to illustrate, this is something that you and I both know players are the last to go. And when you’re in a situation where there’s a lot of pressure, there’s going to be decisions being made on tinkering around with the players. But we do know that before the blame goes to someone who you voted as all NBA in Carl Anthony Towns players are typically the last to go. It’s typically the coach or even you know you see there’s a lot of pressure even on the GM in this situation for going all in and getting Muel Bridges. Yeah. And Chen, I’m glad you brought up that point because it leads me to this point. Look at the two teams that are that are in the championship right now that are playing for the NBA championship, right? the Indiana Pacers and the and the Oklahoma City Thunder. Both of those organizations are ran by not the players but the general managers. That’s the problem. See, when the players try to take control and try to dictate stuff, it usually don’t go right. Like those days are over when it comes down to players having say so and picking who they want. We looking at the Phoenix situation right now. They defied two head coaches in the last two years. Championship head coaches. Perk, you seem real fired up about this. One thing that does make the New York Knicks a little bit of an interesting case study in all of this is they made an enormous trade right before the season. And bringing in Carl Anthony Towns is a huge Well, we talked about trading offense for defense. That’s what the New York Knicks did in a lot of ways and that came to fruition. I know the odds had them second, third at getting out of the Eastern Conference before the season, but that’s cuz people love New York. It doesn’t necessarily reflect how most people in NBA circles thought of them. I think Andrea this is a successful season for New York but again now the landscape people are looking around and seeing that the Eastern Conference they believe is wide open. Yeah but that’s the thing is the Knicks were already so close this season they were so close and Tom Thibido now could if he wasn’t just fired could have a second season to figure out Carl Anthony Towns to massage that relationship if there is something going on to try and figure out that relationship. What is Tom Thibido known for his defensive schemes. So, his defense struggled this season. Give him a second season to figure it out and figure out how to make Carl Anthony Towns and Jaylen Brunson work on that end of the floor. What should the Knicks be looking for in their next coach? This to me was an issue, a failure of personnel. And I think we’re going to come back and look at the Knicks and saying, I believe it was five picks to get Bridges. Now, you make a lot of assets to try to and everyone’s under contract when you’re looking at OG, Cat, Brunson, their core, their starters, they are locked in. Exactly. And on paper, this is a team that does have a lot of potential. Like we we look at Ojanobi as someone who is an elite defender. You know, you go the list goes on and on. There’s chemistry there. There’s synergy there from Nova in the past. But the issue is based off of coach Tib’s style, they built a team around offense. And I think that’s why he was under the pressure cooker to see if he could meet his players whom he had no control of because they made those decisions. So Kendrick Perkins, what do they need? Who do they need? We’ve said experience. Maybe someone who is offensively minded. I’m thinking about someone we just had on our set recently in in maybe I don’t know a Michael Malone perk. Who are you looking at that would be the right voice because that’s what the the the phrasing is from Leon Rose here. We need a different voice in our locker room. Who is that voice for New York? I don’t know. I mean, it might have to be Michael Malone. I mean, when you think about when you talk about championship experience, what other coaches out there, right? Like Michael Malone, he could go in uh again, he’s from the New York area, right? like born and raised, grew up, I mean, went to high school right down the street from where Kyrie Irving grew up. Y’all know my history a little bit down there in New York. But what I’m saying is again, we go back to the point of I don’t know who they’re going to hire. I think Michael Malone right now is probably the best fit if they’re trying to win now because he is the championship level coach, right? He did max max out Jokic to get an NBA championship defensively. So, he does have what it take. But I’m looking at a OG and a Nobi and I’m looking at a Mikuel Bridges and I’m sorry Malik I’m just going back to Chenet point. They supposed to be stoppers. They supposed to be stoppers. Drea Malikica Chenet Pascal Siaka won conference player MVP. Like what was Oana Noi and Muel Bridges then did that wasn’t on tips. A lot of his back baskets came in isolation and in transition. OG Noi is supposed to be one of the best three and D guy three and D guys in the entire NBA. They paid him over 200 million not just for his offense but what he brings vers his versatility on the defensive side of things. I’m not happy today. I’m not happy today. Well, I’m sorry to hear that part. I don’t feel like Tib should have lost his job. Okay. And that is perfectly valid. I think it’s time to get a little bit of an explanation as to why. We’ve sort of been pontificating on what we think was the reasoning behind this, but let’s bring in the man that broke the news, our Shams Shirana. Shams, what more can you tell us about the Knicks decision-making to fire Tom Tibido here? Malikica James Dolan, the Knicks owner, and Leon Rose, the team president. They believed today and landed on the conclusion today that this team needs a new voice to take the next step to try to win a championship. Clearly, they believed that Tom Thibido was not going to be the guy for them to win a championship. That’s been the goal. When you make acquisitions like Leon Rose has made over the last year and a half, Ojanobi, Male Bridges, Carry Towns, you already have Jaylen Brunson, you have a payroll that’s getting higher and higher. And if this is the iteration of the team you want to move forward with, they felt like clearly there was something that just was not going to work moving forward. And Tom Thibido, four of five years that he spent there, they they were playoff team. Uh you think about back-to-back 50 win seasons. the amount of success he had in his five years as head coach. Pat Riley, who else can you really think about in that same uh you know, tone when you think about the last 30, 40 years in Knicks history? He had a very successful run, but they feel like they need a new voice in New York that can allow this team to win a championship. And we’ll see here over the next few days and weeks who that could be. All right. So, over the next couple of days, the next couple of weeks, that’s when the New York Knicks are going to be turning their attention to who could be the next voice, the next steward of this franchise on the firing of James Dolan. I know that the print is fine, so let’s all get our glasses out here together. But, but they said this, right? Our organization singularly focused on winning a championship for our fans. This pursuit, it led us to this difficult decision to inform Tom Tibido that we’ve decided to move on in another direction. They then thank Tom Tibido leading us to with class and professionalism for the past five seasons, but also to tremendous success on the court with four playoff births and four playoff series victories. But ultimately, we feel that this is a decision that’s best for our organization moving forward. Tom will always be a part of our Knicks family and we truly wish him nothing but the best in the future here. Look, I I feel like it’s hard to have it both ways because over the course of the regular season, we hear so many people, fans, people on this network lament that that at the fact that they play their guys too much or they ride them too much and then you don’t have a bench that’s developed. Right. This is that a little bit in case seriously. Exactly. Exactly. But then these things have consequences when you fall short and now you’re looking at someone potentially having the blame for maybe not dealing with the players being ready in the moments that you need to or the defenders stepping up in these moments. So it’s hard to weigh these things because the these actions do have consequences even though to me it feels unfair because he can only coach the players in front of him and they have oscillated toward a different style which is offense even though his nature is defense. Well my thing though is he did adjust using his bench more in the Pacers series. So why not give him an opportunity? But was it too late is the question, but too late is still an adjustment to make the adjustment earlier next season. Like maybe that’s something he could implement next season. Like it should be added in that statement. We know that we only gave him one year with a brand new group to figure this out, but a year is all that he had. Cuz to me, a year is not long enough to figure out an entirely new group. Perk may agree because I see him shaking his head here. How dare you? How dare you if you’re the Knicks to blame Tom Tibido? How dare you? Like we blaming Tom Tibido for that collapse that they had in game one when when when the guys on the floor let took their foot off the gas when they blew a what 20 point lead at home in the Eastern Conference Finals. Are we blaming TS for that? Are we going to blame Jaylen Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns and the guys that contributed to the Pacers coming back and beating them in game one? That’s who we need to blame. See, it’s hard, right? You have Rick Brunson that’s on the bench who’s Jaylen Brunson dad. And I’m taking nothing from Rick Brunson. I love him to death, but I got to call it like it is. You have Jaylen Brunson who is dribbling the oxygen out of the damn basketball on the floor. The Knicks are getting their offense set with 1516 to go on the damn shot clock. No one else is getting involved. Carl Anthony Towns ain’t really touching the ball in the first quarter, but it’s T’s fault. I just can’t I can’t I can’t always falls on the sword, and it’s unfortunately, we know this, it tends to be coaches. Our Bobby Marks just just uh put on social media a really interesting quote from James Dolan. Uh he was on the Roommates podcast uh in March of 2025, and this is what he said. Dolan said, “There were many times when we’ve sort of reached for that shiny, sparkly object. Maybe this is what we need, especially when things aren’t going well. Let’s bring in this guy. maybe he’ll turn it around. Sometimes it’s players, sometimes it’s a coach. And then he continues, he said, “What I’ve learned over time is it doesn’t work. It really doesn’t. You have to build the fundamentals, the basics. You’ve got to build a team. You’ve got to build an organization. There is no waving a magic wand over a team and all of a sudden it makes a great team. That doesn’t happen. This feels closer to a magic wand. You got to practice what you preach though, and it’s the hardest thing to do. But what we’ve seen is that the pressure I just have to go back to the circumstance. It feels like this is a circumstance where again, right or wrong, teams are looking around right now and saying, “If the Pacers can do it, we can too.” And the New York Knicks felt like they were this close. It was all in the margins. What margins can they adjust? We’re going to have the rest of the show to talk about it. We got a lot to get to. Perk’s having a bad day. He doesn’t think this should have happened. We have more reaction coming up on the Knicks. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

On NBA Today, Shams Charania joins to break the news that the New York Knicks firing their head coach of 5 seasons Tom Thibodeau. Then, Andraya Carter, Chiney Ogwumike and Kendrick Perkins debate if Thibs deserved to be fired.

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