Knicks' Thibodeau jokes 'I'm not happy unless I'm miserable'
One might assume that New York Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau would be in high spirits after a road beatdown of the Boston Celtics on Sunday. That also seems like a pretty good way for a basketball lifer to mark his 63rd birthday.
Not so, evidently.
"I'm not happy unless I’m miserable," a grinning Thibodeau said of New York's 105-75 victory on his birthday, according to SNY's Ian Begley.
Still, 14 games into the shortened 72-game season, there's a lot for the gravelly voiced bench boss to be excited about. His Knicks have slightly outperformed their 21st-ranked net rating (minus-2.7), and if the postseason began tomorrow, New York would be featured in the play-in game between the ninth and 10th seeds in the Eastern Conference.
Plus, after years of struggling to bring aboard a superstar through a trade or free agency, the Knicks have established a solid young core around recent draftees RJ Barrett, Mitchell Robinson, Obi Toppin, and Immanuel Quickley.
Meanwhile, seventh-year pro Julius Randle appears to have reinvented himself as one of the league's preeminent point forwards. The former Los Angeles Lakers lottery pick is averaging 22.9 points, 10.6 boards, and 6.5 assists per game while shooting 35.7% from 3-point territory.
Whether the progress in New York is sustainable remains to be seen. Randle and Barrett rank second and third in the league in minutes per game (37 and 36.9, respectively), and both have appeared in all 14 of the Knicks' contests. Any slippage atop the team's depth chart could spell trouble for one of the league's youngest rosters.
However, if Thibodeau is to be taken at his word, the masochist in him would probably enjoy the challenge.