In 2019, the American media the athletic launched a player voting series for the first time. On the question of "Which coach do you least want to play for?", Thibodeau topped the list with 34.6% of the votes.
In 2023, Thibodeau still ranked first, with a vote rate of 43.6%. A year later, Thibodeau's position is still untouchable, with his vote rate increasing to 46.8%, while Doc Rivers, who ranked second, only had 9.1%.
Thibodeau is not popular. The fundamental reason is that he is too ruthless. This season, the Knicks won 50 games in the regular season and were eliminated in the tiebreaker in the second round of the playoffs. Thibodeau's employment has been met with numerous doubts. Looking at the Knicks' injury list, Randall, Mitchell Robinson, and Bojan Bogdanovic have all been reimbursed; Anunoby and Hart both played with injuries, and the former played 5 minutes. The latter played for 37 minutes; Brunson withdrew from the tiebreaker after playing 29 minutes due to a broken left hand.
Thibodeau was criticized for playing "farmer basketball" and was questioned as being "anti-science and anti-humanity" in his employment. But to the surprise of the outside world, Thibodeau has received the support of the entire team. It is rumored that the Knicks management is preparing to give him a salary increase and renew his contract with an annual salary of tens of millions of dollars. How should
view Thibodeau?
He let his disciples play their career masterpieces
The Knicks players are definitely not top-notch in terms of talent. Before meeting Thibodeau, Randall had the possibility of becoming a homeless man. Brunson showed no signs of becoming an All-Star. Hartenstein had bounced around many teams, such as DiVincenzo and Hart. Just regular role players.
But in the Knicks, these players either became All-Stars, received big contracts, or played career masterpieces. Each of them is grateful to Thibodeau.
Thibodeau's style may not be suitable for coaching superstars, but it is very suitable for coaching players with non-top talents. He can extract the value of players and increase their ceiling.
DiVincenzo said: "He can bring out the best in everyone on the team. I am experiencing the best year of my career, and different people on the team are experiencing the best year of their career. .”
Is he a devil on the training ground?
Judging from the comments made during player voting and interviews, many players believe that Thibodeau is a devil on the training ground and that his team trains very hard.
One player said: "I'm too old, I can't handle those trainings."
But the players who actually played for Thibodeau denied that their training was difficult. DiVincenzo said: "It's not that you When you come to the Knicks, you have to do running training every day. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to run for two hours first."
Harten also refuted the rumors and said: "He is not what I imagined. I thought we would do a lot of training and training. More physical training, but we didn’t train as crazy as the outside world imagined. "
He is good at pre-match preparations.
Many people think that Thibodeau’s team can achieve good results purely by allowing Thibodeau to fill up the main playing time. But from the perspective of the Knicks players, their results were achieved through Thibodeau's meticulous preparations.
"I don't think there's really a coach in the league who is going to game plan defensively and be as prepared as Thibodeau is. I've worked with a lot of coaches and I know what other guys are going to do, and I think that's Thibodeau's special expense. When you come to the arena, you will find that he will be there no matter what time of the day."
DiVincenzo said: "I want to say that he is the most prepared coach. I am not targeting any other coach, but. Thibodeau is at another level in this regard. He knows every move and every adjustment of the opponent. The more prepared the team is, the more confident it is. "
The biggest black point is here
. Judging from the interviews given by the players who participated in the voting, their complaint against Thibodeau was that he had "too much playing time."
"He played everybody for 48 minutes," the A player said.
b player said: "He has beaten his disciples for 44 minutes a game all year long."
c player said: "He let his disciples play for too long. A game in the regular season lasted 40 minutes. I don't think as a coach you should treat your disciples like this. "
Combined with the actual situation, you will find that these evaluations are too exaggerated. In the regular season this season, no one in the Knicks ranked in the top 10 in the two leagues in average playing time per game. Randle averaged 35.4 minutes per game, the most in the team, ranking first in the league. No. 15. Before Randall was injured, he didn't play much.
Entering the playoffs, the stars are increasing their playing time. 11 players average more than 40 minutes per game. Only Hart is the Knicks. Mavericks , Suns , 76 people , Lakers each accounted for two people.
Anunoby and Hart's injuries may be related to fatigue, but Brunson, Miro, and Bojan's injuries are more serious. Mostly due to bad luck, a special mention should be made of Miro. Originally, after Miro was injured in the regular season, the Knicks applied for an injury exception on the grounds that Miro would be reimbursed, but the league rejected it, saying that Miro had a chance to play at the end of the regular season. Comeback. In the end, Milo came back, but was injured again.
Thibodeau is now a contradiction that is difficult to evaluate: he gave his disciples a lot of playing time to produce better data and performance, and in exchange for better results, the players. There is a higher chance of getting a big contract, and the team performs better. However, in theory, this approach does put players in a more dangerous situation and have a higher risk of injury (although there is no data to prove this. ), Thibodeau is a bit like a man who can achieve success.
Thibodeau’s merits and demerits, right and wrong, can only be answered by time. In the end, who will remember the championship in 2019. In the playoffs, Nurse allowed Leonard, who was at risk of injury, to play 39.1 minutes per game, and in the finals it was increased to 40.5 minutes?
?