Zach Lowe Outlines Risk Knicks Took in Firing Coach

Still, this call requires immense confidence. Thibodeau helped guide the team back to the Eastern Conference Finals after failing to win back-to-back playoff series for 25 straight years, and the idea that they can just find a coach who can get more out of this core is an optimistic one. The departed coach certainly could have integrated his bench pieces and tertiary scorers more, but it's not like his stars perfectly executed his defensive vision.

Zach Lowe, now of The Ringer, touched on the gamble the Knicks are making in assuming they can just find an immediate superior replacement to a multiple-time Coach of the Year winner.

"The risk here is chaos," the longtime NBA analyst said. "We have seen teams move on from coaches who get you to here, and go up. That's Steve Kerr, Larry Brown, there's a model for that.

"We've also seen teams move on from coaches who get you here, and you go down...and then you're just hovering in mediocrity for, like, 10 years and eight coaches, and you wake up and go, "What the hell just happened to our franchise?"

Lowe elaborated by saying that sacking a coach who limits their ceiling isn't an inherently wrong move, but that the Knicks must understand how betting on oneself will throw a team into uncertainty.

Sources around the Knicks have since made it clear that they're conducting about as expansive of a coaching search as you'll see for a team who fires their main man without a clear successor, co-signing the notion that they're leaving no stone unturned in finding the right replacement for the high-stakes opportunity.