The fact is that we are glaring at the abyss at this moment

The thing that most concerns me is that if you glare too long into the abyss, the abyss glares back at you. Not sure I can handle that.

But in any case, I think letting Thibs go was totally reasonable. For me, it felt like he had reached his expiration date and you could tell things were threatening to turn sour if he was retained.

So sure, get a fresh new face in here with a new voice and a new approach. Squeeze your 48-52 wins out of this roster, maybe even overachieve like Atkinson did with the Cavs. And then when we come up short in the playoffs, we can play the blame game again.

But for me, the guy who is most responsible for the hard ceiling on this current roster is Leon Rose, and it seems like he isn’t going anywhere for at least a couple of years. I’ve been supportive of how he has done and allowed for a growth curve given his lack of experience, but the Bridges trade is pretty much unforgivable. It’s not as bad as some of the blunders made by prior GMs, but the overall result will be similar in that it puts a theoretical ceiling on the team, just at a higher level. Thibs was just an easy target to take the fall.

The best hope now is for Leon to work some crazy magic like he did with Brunson, but with few assets left in the chest, I’m not all that optimistic that this team gets over the top during the next 3 years, and then we have to start dealing with Brunson’s decline phase with no pick in 2029 or 2031.

It’s a moment in time, but a pretty unpleasant snapshot.

What’s worse is that there are coaches that have already said “no thank you” about a Knicks HC job. Dolan set us back to reset.

It feels like the Knicks won’t win the title for a long time now.

It could be my PTSD talking,

i’m not getting this precarious posturing on some kind of precipice, waiting to fall…

2nd round injury flameout the year before…won a couple of games this season in the conference finals…

talented 7 deep roster, under contract…

finally moved on from a coach who at times appeared way over his head with the roster and the league’s top competition…

true to point, no guarantee things get better from here for the team, no guarantee things get worse either…

maybe best not to emotionally tap in to a negative consequence that hasn’t occurred already…plenty of time to suffer later on when some bad shit does happen…

like the coach of your team not inserting mitch in to the starting lineup at an earlier date during the playoffs…or, utilizing deuce in the line up more, or giving delon some time on the court, landry more of a shot, not having some kind of offensive system, not being able to put together a consistent defense with the players on hand…

But he did an excellent job of coaching this team, given who he is. If folks want to pretend that this team should have gone further this year than it did because of the amazing roster we have, good for them.

It is impossible to hold together the claim that Thibs did an excellent job and got the most out of the team with the claim that he ran his course and had to go, unless one specifies “he did an excellent job overall but not good enough for this ‘all-in’ season and roster.” If Thibs got the best out of the current roster, then he should have been given another shot. If he didn’t get enough, then he had to go and someone else must come in and complete the job, as the Knicks organization decided.

What’s done is done right now. For what it’s worth, I firmly believe that Thibs deserved another shot with an improved roster. It takes hard work and patience to move forward in professional sports. It was astonishing that he brought us back from what seemed to be eternal damnation to what we were until two weeks ago and did so in just five years. Even this season he did a very good job, not excellent but very good, despite the glaring problems with the roster construction. He took us as far as he could, possibly one lucky bounce away from the NBA finals. It wasn’t always pretty, but he did it.

Now, the task of firing the coach who brought you so close to the NBA finals and finding another one who would make you better is an enormously difficult one, even if planned and carried out professionally. However, things may be much worse than that. Thibodeau’s firing may be potentially catastrophic if the gradually emerging information about the conditions thereof turns out to be true. Be that Dolan’s intervention, players caprices and involvement, other intrigues, lack of planning on how to move forward, and so on, all those are unhealthy and dilettantish. These are not signs of a well-functioning organization. I hope I’m wrong. It could be my PTSD talking, as I wrote in another post, or the fact I cannot get over what I consider to be a terrible move which came to complement last summer’s terrible decisions. The fact is that we are glaring at the abyss at this moment, and the only hope is that the new coach will turn out to be a perfect fit.

I just don’t see how you can put him in the elite superstar category when he seems to disappear every other game