The New York Knicks are still looking for a new head coach after the firing of Tom Thibodeau. One person who turned down the job was NBA Hall of Famer Paul Pierce. Well, not exactly! But, yes, the Boston Celtics legend did enjoy trolling his old rivals on his podcast.
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It has been a tough road for New York this past season. The team was positioned for a Finals run following their win over the Celtics. They were a confident lot, too. But, after going down to the Pacers in the Conference Finals, the Knicks told Thibs to hit the road.
Since then, they have attempted to interview several candidates, including Jason Kidd, Ime Udoka, Chris Finch, Billy Donovan, and Quin Snyder. They’ve all been shut down by the franchises of those coaches. Pierce, while talking about New York’s woes on The Ticket and The Truth, decided to have some fun.
“I turned down the coaching job,” joked Pierce to his good buddy and fellow Hall of Famer, Kevin Garnett, who was looking to get into actual analysis. “They asked me. I was like, ‘Nah, I’m good’,” added Pierce.
Garnett then started sarcastically guessing why ‘The Truth’ would turn down such an incredible opportunity. Despite all the offers, Pierce stuck to his guns and continued his jibes.
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“Man, that was gonna cost them. They’d have to give me ten [million dollars] just for me to have to deal with the Knicks fans. I was gonna have to give away Spike’s tickets,” Pierce said, referring to acclaimed filmmaker and massive NY fan Spike Lee. “We [are] gonna have to revamp our whole front section. Y’all bad luck.”
This took Garnett by surprise, who pointed out that other celebrities sit in the front row, including Ben Stiller and rising superstar actor Timothée Chalamet. “You had Ben Stiller right there,” barked Garnett. “And they [are] bad luck,” fired back Pierce.
Though it was a wild assumption, Pierce does have a point with Spike. The Oscar winner famously got into a tiff with Reggie Miller back in the 1990s, which caused the Pacers legend to go off against New York and create the now iconic choke image.
Then again, it should also be noted that the Pacers did eventually lose that series. So perhaps Spike wasn’t bad luck after all.
Fast forward to the present day, and Stiller and Chalamet’s presence on the sidelines led to quite the electric atmosphere. Whether they’re bad luck or not remains to be seen, as the sample size of the number of games they were there is far too small.
More than the celebrities on the sidelines, the coaching staff, perhaps, was the issue.
Garnett was critical of Thibodeau earlier in the season
Thibs was far from a perfect coach, but he certainly helped revive basketball in the Big Apple. That said, he certainly received his fair share of criticisms, specifically regarding how rarely he went to his bench. That invariably stretched his starters.
Garnett was vocal about this as early as January, prior to New York making their somewhat magical postseason run. He detailed his displeasure with Thibs on The Ticket and the Truth.
“At some point, you got staff, you got assistants, you got a GM, you got presidents [that should tell Thibodeau to stop playing the starters so much],” KG had stated.
“And, it’s a data league, bro. Data is probably telling you, ‘Hey, the starting 5 is playing way more minutes than the average starting 5 in the league.’ So I’m sure he’s heard this,” he added.
To be fair, Thibs’s lack of bench play wasn’t the only thing that hurt them against the Pacers. It was the level of talent. New York’s core players (Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges) were fantastic throughout, but they couldn’t match up against Indy’s depth.
Whoever the Knicks do bring in for the head coaching position will likely make bench depth and utility their number one priority. For that, like Pierce hinted, the Knicks will have to find someone first.
