Thibodeau revives the Knicks but firing him may be the only way to climb the next step

. He almost got the Cleveland Cavaliers coaching position last summer and had he succeeded in the job, perhaps now he would be the new coach of the year like Kenny Atkinson. If he can lead the Hornets to a winning rate of more than 50%, then he should be able to achieve even greater success with these players accumulated in New York.

So are you considering hiring an "outsider" in the basketball world? Is there another person like JJ Redick who has proven basketball wisdom and can take over a team without the burden of long-term coaching experience? Maybe a veteran player ready to transform. Chris Paul may want to continue playing, but he was a long-time client of Lyon Ross and if he decides to be interested in the coaching position, he seems to jump to the top of all the candidates' rosters right away, perhaps a path to explore.

None of these are for sure choices. Oftentimes, there are few elite head coaches in the market who have proven themselves to choose from, and getting them often takes some luck. Think about how the Pacers invited Rick Carlisle back: His ten-year coaching career in Dallas ended unexpectedly, coincided with the Pacers' coaching position open; if Kevin Durant's foot was one yard smaller, the Milwaukee Bucks might have fired Budenholzer and thrown him an olive branch to coach Giannis Antetokounmpo. Getting the right coach at the right time often requires both luck and execution.

Frankly speaking, the same is true for winning the championship. The Knicks lost to their opponents in six games in the Eastern Conference Finals, but most of the lost games were close. If there is a little shooting luck here and some better ball scrambles there, it may be the Knicks who head to the Finals now. When Thibodeau first joined the Knicks, it was almost unimaginable to have the opportunity to compete at this level. A coach who is not enough to lead the team to the division finals is still capable of leading the team to the division finals. How many Knicks coaches can do this in this century?

This is the pressure these newly generated expectations put on the Knicks. Thibodeau dragged the team out of the lows, but turning a team from bad to good trait is not necessarily turning it from good to great trait. Sometimes, a coach may be a key step in the team's development process, but the final completion of this process may not be his involvement. Now, what the Knicks need to figure out is whether the coach who makes all this possible is also the one who can lead them through the entire journey.