It’s a snub, as if the Knicks had wanted to embed themselves in an NBA present that does not concern them. This historic franchise, which took part in the first NBA game in 1946, chose this Thursday, the day the regular season resumes, to formalize the arrival of coach Tom Thibodeau, 62. Or rather the return since he was assistant coach in the New York team between 1996 and 2004, participating in particular in the defeat in the final against San Antonio in 1999 (4-1).
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Twelfth in the Eastern Conference during the interruption due to Covid-19, New Yorkers were logically not invited to the Orlando “bubble”. Thibodeau will therefore be working on the 2020-2021 season, and there is a lot of work to be done. The New York Knicks have not played in the play-offs since 2013 and have won only one game in three since (32.9%).
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A chance for Frank Ntilikina?
Former assistant of the Boston Celtics champions in 2008 and the American team, “Thibs” has for him a respect inherited from his good time with the Chicago Bulls of Derrick Rose between 2010 and 2015 (62% of victories in the regular season) and the bringing back the Minnesota Timberwolves, who had given him extensive powers, in the play-offs in 2018 after a fourteen-year absence.
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Thibodeau, who was sacked by Minnesota last season, also has his critics, who criticize him for not resting enough his major players and for being better for his defensive systems than offensive. A tropism which can correspond to the profile of the French Frank Ntilikina, one of the young players of a workforce which lacks talent and in which “Thibs” will find the interior Taj Gibson, who was one of his men at the Bulls. That’s at least a point of reference.
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