When the New York Knicks announced the firing of head coach Tom Thibodeau, they emphasized the need to find someone with a different voice and approach to guiding their roster. This is just vague enough to leave us wondering what and who they're looking for, but it's also definitive enough to rule out a popular suggestion: Former Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone.
Sure, the ties between the Knicks and the veteran sideline-wanderer are impossible to ignore. Malone is represented by Creative Artists Agency (CAA), where New York's current team president Leon Rose used to run the basketball side of things. The 53-year-old is also a former Knicks assistant, and the same goes for his father, Brendan Malone, who had three different stints with the organization as an assistant himself.
Heck, Michael Malone was even born (basically) right around the corner from Madison Square Garden, right in Astoria, Queens. The movie script no one actually wants to read practically writes itself.
Still, these emotional ties to the city and team aren't enough for the Knicks to board the Malone bandwagon. Ditto for his championship pedigree. Hiring him to succeed Thibs, in fact, would be a monumental mistake.
Michael Malone is basically Tom Thibodeau 2.0
Linking up with Malone after firing Thibodeau is a lot like switching from vanilla sweetener in your coffee to Tahitian vanilla sweetener. You’re changing the name, but not enough of the flavor.
When the Nuggets (abruptly) dismissed Malone towards the end of the regular season, a bunch of different longstanding issues were cited as motivation. The Cliff Notes version of those complaints are as follows:
- Malone leaned too heavily on Denver’s primary players.
- He refused to adequately develop enough of the team’s youngsters
- He repeatedly butted heads with then-general manager Calvin Booth
- His coaching style proved grating on players and organizational personnel
Sound familiar?
This describes the Thibodeau experience almost to perfection. There are of course exceptions. But there are even more similarities.
Much like Thibs with Jalen Brunson, Malone ostensibly had the backing of the Nuggets’ best player (Nikola Jokic). Just as Thibodeau tapped into using certain youngsters like RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, and Deuce McBride, Malone came to depend heavily on Christian Braun. And just like Thibs again, veteran-player clubs needed to be taken out of Malone’s bag for him to tap into the youth, and even then, he didn’t use all of the prospects at his disposal.
The Knicks need to think outside the Thibodeau-ian box
If the Knicks want a different type of head coach, then they need to actually hire a different type of head coach. That’s not Michael Malone.
This isn’t an insult to him. It isn’t even an insult to Thibs. They both did terrific jobs, at different points, of leading their respective teams to victories. But the primary knock on Thibs has always been that he’s not creative or flexible enough with his offense and rotations. Replacing him with someone who shares so many of those same traits would be curious at best, and franchise malpractice at worst.
New York should venture off the Thibodeau-ian path as it searches for his replacement. If that includes investing in a first-timer to take on one of the league’s highest-pressure gigs, then so be it. At least that’s new and different, which is what the Knicks say they want. But if they end up even considering Malone, we will all, collectively, have to wonder whether Leon Rose and company actually understand the definition of “new” and “different.”