5 Most Likely Reasons New York Knicks Fired Tom Thibodeau

Despite winning 51 games, finishing third in the Eastern Conference and taking his team to the conference finals, the New York Knicks fired head coach Tom Thibodeau on Tuesday.

The organization had the worst winning percentage in the NBA from 2001-02 through its last season without Thibodeau. And during his five years in New York, the Knicks won 56.5 percent of their games.

As the search for his replacement begins, it's worth taking stock of how the organization may have come to this decision.

The biggest reasons for moving on from all Thibs did for New York can be found below.

The Unimaginative Offense

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New York was fifth in the league in points scored per 100 possessions this season.

Jalen Brunson had another huge year on that end, averaging 26.0 points and 7.3 assists. Karl-Anthony Towns fit right in on that end in his first season with the Knicks, putting up 24.4 points, 3.1 assists, 2.9 offensive rebounds and 2.0 threes, while shooting 42.0 percent from deep.

But the attack was overly reliant on those two just sort of doing their thing. And while that was mostly fine in the regular season, it was too predictable against good teams and in the playoffs.

In the regular season, New York was 6-16 against teams that had a top-10 point differential. And in the playoffs, where they've led the league in isolations and were ahead of only the Orlando Magic and Houston Rockets in potential assists per game, they put up 5.5 fewer points per 100 possessions.

Whoever takes over for Thibodeau has to convince Brunson to sacrifice some of his one-on-one possessions. He has to get him, Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby moving more off the ball. He has to find more imaginative ways to get KAT the ball outside the post.

In short, there just needs to be a little more variability in this attack, especially during postseason series in which opponents have time and opportunity to gameplan for the status quo.

Overburdening Stars

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This has long been an issue with Thibodeau-coached teams, but he is still putting too much of a burden on his most important players.

This regular season, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart and OG Anunoby were first, second and ninth, respectively, in total minutes played. Hart, Bridges, Anunoby, Brunson and Towns were first, third, fifth, 14th and 19th in minutes per game.

And those heavy workloads may have contributed to the Knicks simply running out of gas in a conference finals against an Indiana Pacers team buoyed by depth and a run-and-gun offense.

By the end of that series, it was clear that New York couldn't match the end-to-end speed of the likes of Pascal Siakam, Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith, and that likely had more to do with fatigue than any athletic deficit.

Not Developing a Bench

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One result of Thibodeau's approach to minutes for his stars (or starters) is a lack of playing time for everyone else on the roster.

The five starters (Anunoby, Bridges, Brunson, Towns and Josh Hart) all had at least 2,300 minutes. No one else had more than 1,600. Only 10 teams, most of which were tankers, had fewer players with 1,600-plus minutes this season.

Coaching in the NBA requires a tough balancing act. Had Thibodeau committed more time to younger players or reserves, the Knicks may not have won 51 games and finished in third place.

At the same time, trusting the likes of Miles McBride, Landry Shamet, Delon Wright or even Tyler Kolek a bit more may have helped them figure out their place on the team and in the rotation and given New York more helpful players by the time the playoffs rolled around.

Having a staff capable of developing talent into trustworthy players is a part of this equation, too.

And whoever fills Thibodeau's seat will have to figure out how to build more sustainable rotations.

Average Defense

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For all of his coaching career, dating back to his days as an assistant for the Finals-winning 2007-08 Boston Celtics, Thibodeau was known as a defensive specialist.

And plenty of his teams helped him uphold that reputation. The Joakim Noah-led Chicago Bulls had above-average defenses in each of Thibodeau's five seasons there. In three of those years, Chicago was top two in the league on that end.

He didn't have a similar track record for defensive success with the Minnesota Timberwolves, but that team had KAT as its center. And while he and Brunson certainly have something to do with New York being barely above average on that end in 2024-25, the fact remains: barely above average doesn't really scream title contention.

Had New York been able to put the screws to opposing offenses a bit more like Thibs' Chicago teams did, it would've been tougher to move on from him.

His Voice Simply Got Stale

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In his reporting for SportsCenter shortly after he broke the news on X, ESPN's Shams Charania said New York simply needed a new voice.

And while this is a fairly cliched and vague way to explain a firing, there's a reason it comes up so often.

Think about the life of an NBA basketball player. Generally speaking, even as kids, they go through coaches every few years. Junior high doesn't last forever. Neither does high school, which typically has multiple coaches across multiple different levels (though most NBA players make the varsity squad pretty early). Most of the best players in the league were only in college for a year or two.

Coaching changes are a constant in a basketball player's life. And especially with a coach who can be as stern and no-nonsense as Thibodeau, players can start to tune a voice out after a few short seasons.

Thibs has been with the Knicks for five years. That's as long as he led the Bulls, and longer than he was with Minnesota.

It may be an unfortunate reality for the coaches who live this life, but it may have simply been time for a change in New York.