Several former New York Knicks and basketball mainstays have spoken out in the defense of ousted head coach Tom Thibodeau, but one ex-Manhattanite is all too pleased to be bidding happy trails.
Former Knick Marcus Morris pulled no punches when discuss the Thibodeau firing with Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo! Sports, claiming to be "a fan" of the former head coach's sacking. Morris' issues once again center on Thibodeau's over-reliance on his primary men, a common criticism of Thibodeau's work as a head coach.
"I just didn't feel like he got the best out of his players," Morris told Goodwill. "Early in the season, I was saying like 'hey, man, you got to trust the bench, you've got to trust these other guys' and not only trust them to put them in the game."
"When you're trying to win a championship, a lot of things goes into that, like not just playing five players and being like, okay, let's get the most we can get out of them or playing six when you throw Mitchell Robinson in. It's a team thing."
Thibodeau had a steadfast devotion to seven or eight-man set but he began to open up a bit after the Knicks lost the first two games of their first Eastern Conference Finals showing in 25 years against the deep Indiana Pacers. Changes, alas for Thibodeau, came too late, and the Pacers still took the series in six games to face the equally adaptable Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals.
Morris said that Thibodeau's obsession with keeping contained to familiar veteran faces damaged the "camaraderie" the Knicks carried.
"When you play five guys, no matter what you're saying, [guys are] not happy," Morris explained. "Your team is not going to be the happiest it can be when you're not even giving other people a chance to be successful to help the team."
"When Mikal Bridges came out earlier in the season and he said 'there's other guys on this team that can help, we don't need to play this many minutes,' that right there should've showed they're not really feeling this."
Things may be a little personal for Morris, who was re-signed by the Knicks in September before he was waived just under two weeks later. The 35-year-old previously played for the last pre-Thibodeau Knicks team in 2019-20, averaging a career-best 19.6 points for a woebegone Manhattan group that ousted David Fizdale before the calendar flip to January.
This time around, Morris claims he was assured a roster spot despite the waiving, even though he knew that the team was pursuing Karl-Anthony Towns and that other teams had expressed interest in adding him as a veteran mentor.
But a reunion never came to fruition and Morris wound up not playing this season thanks in part to what he labeled "normal Leon Rose and Knicks s***."
"I was supposed to be with the Knicks this year," Morris said. "I had some other calls, I had some other teams ... I turned down other offers because I thought I was going to be a Knick. To me, that was just like a slap in the face. I'm a 14-year veteran, I've been in this league, I've got a lot of respect. You guys called me, asked me to come over there. I didn't ask to come over there ... When there became interest, I pushed everything to the backside, and then they back doored me."
Thibodeau's departure has caused a plethora of reactions, many sympathizing with the former New York boss. Few if any, however, have reached a level of bluntness that Morris channeled and he no doubt adds a layer of scrutiny to the shocking switch.
