They say people go to NASCAR races to see the crashes. If that’s true in auto racing, it’s definitely true in the NBA. The Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers are waging war in an epic NBA Finals, but the car wreck that is the New York Knicks coaching search still threatens to overshadow the battle.
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Led by head coach Tom Thibodeau, the Knicks reached the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in a quarter-century. Nevertheless, Thibs was shown the door just a few days later. As the coaching search continues, it’s becoming clear that the Knicks didn’t have much of a plan beyond letting Thibs go.
Charles Barkley has never been one to suffer fools. He had some choice words for the Knicks after they were denied the chance to speak to numerous active head coaches around the league, including Jason Kidd, Ime Udoka, Chris Finch, Quin Snyder and Billy Donovan.
“The Knicks gotta be the stupidest damn people in the world,” Chuck said. “You don’t fire no good coach like that and don’t have a plan. They don’t have a plan. Now I don’t know what the hell they’re gonna do.”
Barkley is totally right. Magic Johnson appeared on Get Up this morning, and he agreed with his fellow Hall-of-Famer while saying that they should have given Thibs at least one more year.
“You have to have a plan,” Magic said. “If you’re gonna fire the man, you have to at least have somebody in mind that you can get to come and fill his position. But it seems like they didn’t have a plan in place.”
He also called out the players for their role in getting Thibodeau fired, saying, “There’s a lotta pressure on them players next season. Because now, if you fire the coach, and this is what you wanted, now you gotta step up.”
Magic used his own career as an example. He was candid in saying that he wanted Paul Westhead out as the Lakers coach. Westhead was fired, and the next year, Magic and the Lakers won the title under Pat Riley to kick off the Showtime dynasty.
There are other examples in NBA history of this working, like when the Pistons fired Rick Carlisle after the current Pacers coach led them to the 2003 Eastern Conference Finals. Larry Brown was hired, and he led them to a championship the next year. Still, the Knicks have a long way to go to be mentioned in the same breath as either of those teams.
Magic did throw out some names who could be good fits for the Knicks. He suggested current Boston Celtics assistant Sam Cassell, who was on staff when the Celtics won the title last year, and Mike Malone, the former coach of the Denver Nuggets who was fired just before the regular season ended and led the Nuggets to the Larry O’Brien Trophy in 2023.
The Knicks have all offseason to figure their search out, so, while it’s been a bad look this week for them to have their attempts to woo other team’s coaches shut down, there’s no real rush, especially if it means not finding the right guy for the job. Making a panic move because of some bad PR would only make Charles Barkley more right than he already is.
