The energy around the Knicks fanbase has descended into full-blown panic with each report of the team’s request to speak with a potential head coach candidate being rejected.
Have we completely lost touch with the nature of a job search from the eyes of an employer, including in the sporting field?
First, let’s go back to the beginning, where Leon Rose and the Knicks decided that it was time to move on from Tom Thibodeau shortly after falling in the Eastern Conference Finals. Just as there were multiple arguments to keep Thibodeau around for a sixth season (his ability to establish a culture, the buy-in from stars like Jalen Brunson, his proven ability to take the franchise to heights it hadn’t seen in a quarter century), there were also cases against keeping the head coach (his rigidity in terms of rotations and tweaking of a starting five that had glaring issues since the second half of the regular season). Many fans were calling for Thibodeau’s job while the Knicks were taking down the defending champion Celtics in the conference semis, and now the front office is getting dragged for canvassing for Thibodeau’s replacement?
How has the mood around the team shifted so drastically after a few reported rejections from teams with coaches under contract?
Rose and the Knicks felt Thibodeau had carried the team as far as he could, thanked him immensely for his services, and moved on. Every report from reputable reporters around the team suggested that Rose made the decision, and James Dolan supported it. If the team believed Thibodeau wasn’t the guy to bring the Knicks to an NBA Finals and a championship, isn’t the first step letting go of him? Were the Knicks supposed to have a coach already lined up to replace him without doing any kind of due diligence? Would fans have preferred they kept Thibodeau - a coach they decided couldn’t get them to their ultimate goal - just in case they couldn’t find someone else? That’s called settling.
Now to the next phase of their process, which has been getting dragged across social media by fans that were recently celebrating Rose and company for building the Knicks into a consistent contender for the first time in decades. New York has since reached out to teams with head coaches they were interested in speaking with about their vacancy, including the Mavericks (Jason Kidd), the Timberwolves (Chris Finch), and the Rockets (Ime Udoka). Per multiple reports, those requests were all rejected, and fans have become incredulous that the team would covet coaches that potentially would be unable to even speak about the opening, worried it could leave the Knicks without a head coach. Why is this an issue?
Again, a refresher on the hiring process in many professions: a company produces a list of candidates they wish to speak to, and if it doesn’t work out, move on throughout the list before interviewing a group, then make the hire from those candidates. Do we think Leon Rose, the careful architect of this unprecedented organizational turnaround, fired Thibodeau under the assumption that a coach under contract would definitely work out? The far likelier scenario is that Rose and company started with some potential long shots that they would like to speak with - not necessarily hire - before moving on to other candidates that are available that they have likely vetted before making their rounds across the league.
Whether it’s Johnnie Bryant, Taylor Jenkins, or another candidate, it is highly, highly unlikely that the Knicks didn’t discuss coaching candidates that would require nothing more than a job offer before firing Thibodeau. To let go of Thibs and put everything on getting permission from another team to speak to a head coach under contract would go starkly against how Rose and World Wide Wes have operated over the past five years. That’s just not adding up.
There’s no way of knowing (yet) that Kidd, Udoka, or Finch were at the top of Rose’s wish list. Asking permission to speak with those coaches doesn’t mean any were their most coveted. It is simply the product of the hiring process, which includes making a list of potential hires and doing due diligence to see who on that list would be attainable. An interview doesn’t mean a hire. Interviews could be what swings an employer (look no further than Aaron Boone’s interview with the Yankees back in 2017). Who is to say, even if the Knicks were given permission to speak with Kidd, that Bryant or Jenkins would interview after and sell the team on their vision, and the Knicks went that route? Again, welcome to how a hiring process works.
To call the Knicks a mess or a version of their former selves because they are being turned down by teams in regards to their head coaches is unfair and even more reactionary than those fans are accusing Rose to be. New York decided that Thibodeau wasn’t the guy to get them to the next level - a sentiment many fans agreed with - and turned their attention to candidates that they are interested in speaking with to see if they are the one to get them where they want to go. If it wasn’t Thibodeau, why are so many fans suddenly clamoring for a redo?
The desperation to win after decades of futility is understandable, but it shouldn’t lead to calling into question the process of a front office that is directly responsible for getting the Knicks out of that futility. Let’s just allow the process to play out and save the reactions for when a head coach is hired.