Tom Thibodeau is an unfortunate tale in modern basketball when you think about it. He joined a fraternity of coaches that includes Mark Jackson and Dwane Casey of being someone who helped build the foundation of a champion, only for the organization to look elsewhere for someone to get them over the top. It wasn’t clear for a while that the Knicks would replicate the success of Steve Kerr and Nick Nurse’s hirings, but what they got in Mike Brown was a resounding success.
The real tragedy with Thibodeau
isn’t just his semi-rare distinction; it’s worse with added context. This is a man who eats, sleeps, and breathes basketball. He broke off an engagement in college to pursue his dreams of coaching, having been hopelessly obsessed with the game since. He’d been a coach in the NBA for 30 years, bouncing from an assistant on the Knicks to the defensive maestro on the ‘08 Celtics to his two attempts at building foundations in Chicago and Minnesota.
His third head coaching gig was the one he always wanted. As a kid from Connecticut, he said that the Knicks were always his dream job. Everything seemed perfect as he helped bring the team back to relevance, but his own limitations as a coach and a roster that failed to gel in Year 1 prompted a tough decision after five years in charge. Now, a year later, he had to watch an identical version of that team win with a different coaching philosophy. Bittersweet, to say the least.
I’ll always appreciate what Thibs did here, mostly because he was the gold standard as a coach for a relatively young fan who didn’t get to watch the 90s. Hell, up until him, Mike Woodson was my gold standard. I think it’d be foolish if anyone looked past how important it is to set a foundation, because you don’t go from LolKnicks to champs overnight.
And as crazy as it sounds, as the Knicks draw closer and closer to beginning their title defense, there’s something from the Tom Thibodeau era that the Knicks can use to weather the storm of a task that has devoured and, in some cases, torn apart much of the seven teams that came before them.
What’s that, you ask?
Stamina.
Thibs’ downfall was the minutes. By the time the Knicks made the Eastern Conference Finals against the run-and-gun Pacers, they were exhausted. Three of the top five in total minutes wore orange and blue. The lack of lineup versatility doomed them against a deep, fresh Pacers team. No matter how conditioned the Knicks were, the human body had limits.
The change was made to Mike Brown, who completely changed things in New York despite very similar personnel. Deeper rotations, using the regular season to experiment with the depth, and lighter workloads for the starters across 82 games. It paid off come playoff time, where, despite a championship run, four of the team’s five starters accrued less mileage than they did the year before:
2024-25 vs. 2025-26, including playoffs:
Brunson: 2,981 vs. 3,292 (+311)
Hart: 3,539 vs. 2,608 (-931)
Bridges: 3,742 vs. 3,300 (-442)
Anunoby: 3,411 vs. 2,810 (-601)
Towns: 3,156 vs. 2,900 (-256)
Now, part of that is due to just how dominant they were in the playoffs. The Knicks played only one more basketball game in 2025-26 than they did the year before. After three six-game series the season prior, they needed just 19 total games to win a title this year, with a memorable 16-3 run. Still, aside from Brunson, everyone played considerably less, especially Hart and Bridges.
This is pretty unprecedented. If you combine the five starters, they played 16,829 minutes in the final season under Thibs and 14,910 minutes under Brown. You rarely see a team run back the same starting five in a non-title season and go on to win one, but it’s even rarer to see said team not sustain a major injury to their starting five in those consecutive seasons. Thank you, Casey Smith!
While cumulative wear and tear is a concern, the real concern that plagues most defending champions is fatigue off the championship season, coupled with a shorter offseason. The workload increase is a real thing. Didn’t you see how tired the Spurs looked late in the NBA Finals?
Four of the Knicks’ starters saw a sizable reduction in their minutes in the championship season compared to the season before. How many teams can say that?
How Many Starters Played Fewer Minutes During Title Season Than Year Before, Recent Title Winners:
2026 Knicks: 4 (Hart, Bridges, Anunoby, Towns)
2025 Thunder: 2 (Holmgren, Hartenstein)
2024 Celtics: 3 (Brown, Tatum, Porzingis)
2023 Nuggets: 0
2022 Warriors: 0
2021 Bucks: 1 (PJ Tucker)
Here’s the real kicker when comparing them to these prior teams. Holmgren played 30 fewer games due to injury; Brown and Tatum only played 100 minutes left after a similarly brutal 2023 playoff run. Hart played nearly 19 fewer games’ worth of minutes, Anunoby played over 12 fewer games’ worth, Bridges played nine fewer games’ worth, and Towns played 5.5 fewer games’ worth. That’s a whole lot less mileage to deal with the truncated offseason.
As I saw during my research on recent champions earlier this week, multiple recent champions have dealt with injuries in the aftermath of their title. The stress, fatigue, and wear and tear on NBA players’ bodies over the course of seasons are something that can’t be discounted.
LeBron and AD missed extended time in 2021. Khris Middleton got hurt in the 2022 playoffs. The aging Warriors stumbled through the regular season in 2023. Half of Boston unraveled after their elimination in 2025. Jalen Williams missed much of the season and playoff run in 2026. These are key players, all of whom saw either a significantly increased workload or, in the case of Boston, a prolonged high workload over years and years.
The parting gift for Thibs might be the key to avoiding this fatigue as long as possible. What made the transition from him to Coach Brown so effective is that they had the ability to play larger minutes in their back pocket based on the experience of playing for Thibs, while Brown managed their minutes in the meantime by playing the bench. If you’re gonna transition two styles of coaches mid-window, that’s how you do it.
In a stacked East, there might not be many nights that the Knicks can take it easy, but you’re going to have to be reasonable with regular season workloads after last year. Come playoff time? They’ll be ready to play large minutes, and it’s their old coach they have to thank.
