Report: Knicks’ Leon Rose Met With ‘Several Key Players’ Before Firing Tom Thibodeau

According to Ramona Shelburne of ESPN, New York Knicks president Leon Rose met with “several key players” before firing Tom Thibodeau as head coach. 

Rose and Knicks owner James Dolan fired Thibodeau on Tuesday despite New York making the conference finals this year for the first time since 2000. 

“In the days before Thibodeau’s firing, Rose met with several key players and members of the coaching staff, sources told ESPN,” Shelburne wrote. “Ostensibly similar to the kind of exit meetings teams hold with players after each season, in this case, only a handful of players — essentially the top rotation players — were summoned to meet with Rose and Dolan to give their opinions on the state of the franchise and how the team should move forward.

“But the decision to replace Thibodeau, one source told ESPN, had been trending in that direction for months. The team simply wasn’t maximizing its talent, despite having two All-NBA players in Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. And after meeting with the select group of players and coaches this week, sources said, it was clear to Rose that the organization needed a new voice.”

Thibodeau, who has coached the Chicago Bulls and Minnesota Timberwolves, was hired by the Knicks in 2020. He went 226-174 in the regular season and 24-23 in the playoffs and won the 2021 Coach of the Year Award. 

New York lost to the Indiana Pacers in this year’s conference finals in six games.

Thibodeau has never coached a team to the NBA Finals. 

“The players hadn’t tuned out Thibodeau, one source told ESPN, but there was doubt that he could lead them to the Finals after the way the Knicks lost to the Pacers. ‘He got outcoached,’ a league source familiar with the situation told ESPN. ‘The Game 1 collapse was insane. If they don’t have that collapse, who knows what happens.’ Throughout the series, Thibodeau was challenged on his decisions by the relentless New York media,” Shelburne wrote. 

Thibodeau is 578-420 in the regular season and 48-55 in the postseason with the Bulls, Timberwolves and Knicks. He’s owed over $30 million from New York.