Despite their great season, the Knicks need to make a change at the top

The New York Knicks just won 50 games this season, their most since 2013, and a playoff series. Yet, they should still make a coaching change. Tom Thibodeau doesn't deserve to lose his job, but he should.

Much like Navy firing head football coach Ken Niumatalolo after the 2022 season, despite a 109-83 career record, the Knicks should move on because they want to go in a different direction.

Thibodeau can be a lot like your rebound after a break-up. He'll get you back on your feet, but you know he's not going to make it to the finish line.

Thibodeau's winning percentage in the regular season is .575 percent, but falls to just .447 percent in the postseason.

Because he'll play his starters more than most teams, stealing some wins in the regular season is inevitable. But by the time the postseason rolls around, after a grueling 82-game slate, his starters are worn out. They're not as rested as the stars of the other playoff teams, who didn't play as much during the season.

It's no coincidence that teams who played fewer games in the first two rounds of the playoffs are 17-1 in the conference finals over the last 11 years. It's because they are better rested.

Three Knicks starters played in over 76 games this year. Jalen Bruson finished the regular season 10th in total minutes played, Josh Hart finished 11th and Julius Randle finished 15th in minutes played per game. Randle was on pace to match Brunson in minutes this season, prior to his injury.

But as the Knicks took the floor Sunday for a decisive Game 7, they were without five players. OG Anunoby, who missed Games 3-6, was a shell of himself, Hart was playing hurt and Brunson left the game with his second injury of the series. 

Injuries can be fluky and often hard to pin on one person. If something happens once, it's an outlier. If it happens a second time, maybe it's a coincidence. A third time? That's a pattern. Injuries became more than a pattern for the Knicks this year; by May, they became the norm.

And that's nothing new for Thibodeau.

His star in Chicago, Derrick Rose, suffered a career-altering injury in 2012 after four straight seasons of playing over 35 minutes per game. Prior to battling injuries, he played in 281 of a possible 288 games.

Loul Deng was a back-to-back All-Star in 2012 and 2013 while leading the league in minutes played per game each season. 

Following that 2013 season, Deng never made an All-Star team again and was out of the league six years later. His points per game dropped from 16.0 prior to 2014 to 12.2 afterward.

That Bulls team also failed to ever win the Eastern Conference, despite being the No. 1 seed in back-to-back seasons. Thibodeau's only conference finals appearance was his first season as a head coach, when, theoretically, his players would be most rested. 

Thibodeau's style might seem like it earns extra win opportunities, but it actually costs those opportunities in the postseason. 

Not to mention, it might also cost a team the opportunity to sign big-name free agents who don't want to take on a dangerous workload.

There is a ceiling to Thibodeau's success due to his coaching style. And that ceiling will keep the Knicks from going as far as they hope, much like it did in Chicago and Minnesota for Thibodeau.