You have been fired or laid off, and your replacement immediately takes the company to unprecedented heights while receiving the universal praise reserved for the geniuses of your craft.
Are you happy for that person or that employer?
Human nature offers the obvious answer. If I were fired or laid off one year and my replacement won a Pulitzer Prize the next, I would not be throwing a ticker-tape parade for that person. (Columnist’s note: I’m thrilled I wasn’t Pablo Torre’s predecessor.)
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Mike Brown just won his Pulitzer with the NBA champion New York Knicks, and on Thursday, he is getting his ticker-tape parade. You would think Tom Thibodeau has to feel a certain kind of way about this, since he’s still wondering why his five seasons of meritorious service building a wretched Knicks team into a contender didn’t earn him another shot.
On top of that, Thibodeau was the son of a Connecticut purchasing agent who adored the Knicks, especially the two championship teams from the Red Holzman era. Thibs savored every second of his time working for Jeff Van Gundy in Madison Square Garden in the 1990s. Later, as a Boston Celtics assistant, he was overwhelmed when coaching with Willis Reed, a hero to two generations of Thibodeaus, during the league’s All-Star weekend rookie-sophomore game.
The Knicks were always Thibodeau’s dream job. “He would crawl to Madison Square Garden,” a friend of his said years ago.
Thibodeau was said to be heartbroken when owner James Dolan and team president Leon Rose, his former agent, fired him after he led the Knicks to their first Eastern Conference finals appearance in a quarter-century. Without Thibs and his long-standing professional and personal relationship with Rick Brunson, Jalen Brunson might not even be on this team.
But Dolan and Rose wanted a coach who collaborated more with a front office that chafed at Thibodeau’s perceived unwillingness to act on their suggestions, and perceived inflexibility when it came to reducing the starters’ minutes and developing the bench. They swung and missed on several accomplished and employed candidates before deciding the unemployed Brown was their man.
Replacing Thibodeau with a coach who had been fired four times was a pretty bold roll of the dice. It didn’t come up snake eyes.
Brown hit his share of potholes during the regular season, most notably with Karl-Anthony Towns. But his record-breaking postseason, punctuated by 15 victories in the last 16 games and a quick NBA Finals conquest of the San Antonio Spurs, made him the coach of arguably the greatest Knicks team ever and a permanent part of New York lore. Brown and Holzman. Holzman and Brown. The only two Knicks coaches to ever get this franchise across the line.
“Mike was invaluable to this run,” Josh Hart said.
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“We’re so grateful, so thankful to have him at the top. … He’s the reason why we’re here, and we’ve got love for him. That’s a bond that we are always going to have.”
This quote couldn’t have been easy for Thibodeau to read, just as Dolan’s newly released video — a pre-playoff pep talk for the team — couldn’t have been easy to see and hear.
The owner acknowledged in his speech that the Thibs firing “shocked the world” and that if the Knicks failed in the postseason, the decision-makers would be second-guessed forever. Dolan told the players the change was made because “Leon and I believe that you, the team and the rest of the organization needed to be heard more, needed to work together more, not just led or dictated to. And coach Thibs was a great coach, brilliant, etcetera, but we thought you needed a coach that would pull you together, that would have you play as a team.”
At least Dolan called him brilliant.
Roommates EXCLUSIVE❗
NEVER BEFORE SEEN speech from Jim Dolan before the Knicks playoff run 🏆 pic.twitter.com/oZYBGinxYo
— Roommates Show (@Roommates__Show) June 15, 2026
Though Thibodeau didn’t respond to The Athletic’s message seeking comment, one of his favorite players, Taj Gibson, told SiriusXM NBA Radio that he had spoken to the coach and that “he didn’t have any kind of malice in his heart. He didn’t have any kind of hatred. He was so happy for the guys. He was just really so proud of the guys and what they accomplished.”
Before the season, The Athletic reported that Thibodeau was deeply wounded and “had a sense of betrayal” after his firing and believed some people in the organization he had helped over the years didn’t return that loyalty. On Tuesday, a friend of Thibodeau’s said he is “genuinely very happy for the players and his guys” for winning a historic championship. “But Tom is still hurt that the decision-makers made it appear he needed to be replaced.”
Did he need to be replaced? No, of course not.
Was Brown the perfect choice to replace Thibodeau? Yes, of course he was.
Once again, both things can be true at the same time.
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The Knicks were a combined 182 games under .500 in the six years before Thibodeau’s arrival. Thibs went 226-174 in the regular season and won four playoff series in his final three seasons, including the termination of the defending champion Boston Celtics in the 2025 conference semis.
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More than anything, Thibodeau built a program around a core commitment to mental toughness. After the Knicks were eliminated by Tyrese Haliburton’s Indiana Pacers for the second straight year, Dolan sat in on the exit interviews and decided that mental toughness alone wasn’t winning his franchise its first title since 1973.
He was right.
Brown’s lighter touch made a difference in Year 1, just like Joe Torre’s lighter touch made a difference with the New York Yankees in 1996, when they won their first of four championships in Torre’s first five seasons. Much like Thibodeau, Buck Showalter was a notarized hardass who did all the dirty work in restoring a dreadful team. His Yanks might have won the World Series in 1994, Showalter’s third year, if that World Series hadn’t been canceled by labor strife. They did reach the playoffs the following year — the Yanks’ first postseason trip since 1981 — before owner George Steinbrenner pressured Showalter to fire some coaches he refused to fire, forcing the manager’s exit.
Showalter recalled by phone Tuesday being happy for Derek Jeter and his guys while watching in ’96. “I was pulling for them to win it all, and that was really the emotion I had,” Showalter said. “I was like a proud father or uncle … and I don’t feel you ever rain on their parade. I don’t know if you’d get that same response from my wife and kids.”
In his next job, Showalter won 100 games in his second year with the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks, only to get fired the following year. His replacement, Bob Brenly, immediately won an epic World Series over Torre’s Yankees.
“I was working for ESPN and walking back from Game 7 to my hotel with my head down, in complete anonymity,” Showalter said. “I lost my naivete in Arizona. I lost my innocence there. That one made you get a little hardened to some realities.”
Showalter has been linked to Thibodeau in recent weeks in New York, just as Brown has been linked to Torre.
“I think Thibodeau brought the Knicks an identity they didn’t have,” Showalter said.
Truer NBA words were never spoken.
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Across this charmed Knicks run, not many public flowers have been tossed Thibodeau’s way from his former team. Dolan said a few nice things here and there while explaining why the coach had to go. Brown was a study in dignity and grace all season, but he did not credit his predecessor like his former Golden State Warriors boss, Steve Kerr, repeatedly credited Mark Jackson in the early hours of his Warriors tenure. Hart mentioned Thibs in passing during the finals, but there wasn’t much from Jalen Brunson or Towns or anyone else all year.
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So be it. Thibodeau is a big boy, and Dolan is still paying him a lot of money from that $30 million extension signed in the summer of 2024.
But his dream job was never about the wages or the first-class perks. Like Brown, Tom Thibodeau worked his ass off trying to become the next Red Holzman and almost got there.
Someone might want to say a sentence or two about that at the City Hall ceremony following Thursday’s parade.