The New York Knicks were among the teams to make a head coaching change in the 2025 offseason, firing Tom Thibodeau to bring in Mike Brown. Thibodeau lost his job despite leading the Knicks to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2025, and team owner James Dolan spoke about that decision during an appearance on The Carton Show on WFAN.
“The team is really built on the shoulders of Tom Thibodeau,” Dolan said. “He built that core. We went as far as we did last year. So you really gotta take your hat off to Tom and the job that he did. But we did come to the conclusion that we had an idea of how we wanted to organize the team, and actually, it goes for both teams [Knicks and New York Rangers].
“And that meant we needed to evolve, actually, beyond the old traditional coaching formulas, etc,” Dolan continued. “And we tried to work that with Tom. It really wasn’t his thing.”
That was quite interesting. Host Craig Carton then asked if Dolan was referring to Thibodeau not using his bench a lot and the style of play.
“That’s some of it, but much more about style of leadership,” Dolan stated. “Collaboration versus sort of [lone wolf]… Because of the way, particularly basketball, but also hockey too, the way that sports evolving, how much more complicated it is, we’re very, very big on development in both clubs… It’s not like the old days, the old Yankees, where you get Reggie Jackson and this guy and this guy and put together a team.
“It’s almost impossible to do that in the NBA,” Dolan continued. “You have to homegrow some of your talent, and that also builds up trade currency, etc. But it’s a development thing, and that’s a team of people. There’s literally 20 people who are specifically dedicated to developing the players, to getting their skill levels up, to getting the strategy on the court in.”
Dolan stated that Thibodeau liked the concept of player development, but agreed with Carton’s assessment that he preferred playing veterans who bought into his system. When the host stated that the Knicks had to be thinking that you can’t win a title with him, the 70-year-old disagreed.
“I won’t say you can’t win a title with Tom Thibodeau,” Dolan stated. “I don’t necessarily know that’s true. It’s just that if you want to build a long-term, competitive, compete for the [title]… you need somebody who’s much more of a collaborator than Tom was. But still, Tom is still a great coach. He should coach again in the NBA.
“If I had a franchise that I was just starting with, etc., he would be a gold mine to get,” Dolan added. “And he was like that for us when we first started, and he first came in. He brought discipline. He brought strategy. He brought us all that way, but we really felt we needed to make a change to go the rest of the way.”
The Knicks had missed the playoffs seven seasons in a row when Thibodeau arrived in 2020. They had won 38 games combined in the two seasons prior, and he revitalized the franchise.
Thibodeau led the Knicks to the playoffs in four of his five seasons at the helm. The 2024-25 campaign saw the team make the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 25 years, but it wasn’t enough.
Following the Knicks’ elimination in six games at the hands of the Indiana Pacers, Thibodeau was fired. He had put together an impressive 226-174 record during his time there.
It was reported at the time that Dolan had spearheaded Thibodeau’s firing. He was said to have never been a fan of his through the years.
Dolan was asked here if he had discussed all of what he said on the show with Thibodeau, and he stated they spoke all the time.
“I don’t wanna get too deep into the interaction,” Dolan said. “But I would say that whole last year we were talking to Tom about where we wanted to go, etc.”
Dolan also revealed that he felt Thibodeau was “mildly surprised” by their decision to fire him. As for the replacement, Brown was doing a pretty good job, but the team is struggling a bit now.
The Knicks are on a four-game losing streak, which has dropped them to 23-13 on the season. They were 24-12 after 36 games last season, so they are a bit worse than they were under Thibodeau. Still, Brown has led the Knicks to the NBA Cup, for what that’s worth, and it will be interesting to see how far he takes them in the playoffs in what is a weaker Eastern Conference.
