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New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau has become the face of anti-load management in the NBA for his propensity to play his key players heavy minutes.
A reporter asked Thibodeau if the league’s latest findings on load management were a vindication.
“Nah, my thing is just being around good teams, watching what they did to prepare,” Thibodeau told reporters after Friday’s shootaround. “One time, I had talked to Michael Jordan about it at length, the things that he did to prepare for a season. He had the belief and the whole organization did about the way you should work.”
“Same thing in Boston. In ’08, when we won the championship, those guys were phenomenal. They didn’t miss practice. Great practice team. In the ’90s, the Knicks were a great practice team. And it served them well. If you’re playing pro sports, there’s always the possibility of getting injured. I think you look at everything. But you have to prepare yourself to play a long season.”
Tom Thibodeau is asked if he feels vindicated by the NBA’s findings on load management:
The NBA has appealed to the teams and players to be available in all 82 games in the regular season.
“I think it was a given conclusion that the data showed that you had to rest players a certain amount and that justified guys sitting out,” NBA executive vice president and head of basketball operations Joe Dumars told reporters during Wednesday’s conference call with national media via ESPN. “We’ve gotten more data, and it just doesn’t show that resting, sitting guys out correlates with lack of injuries or fatigue or anything like that.
“What it does show is guys maybe not as efficient on the second night of a back-to-back. But in terms of injury and things like that, that we thought it did prior, as we got more data, we realized that’s not really holding up.”
6 Knicks Made It to ESPN’s Top 100
Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle led six Knicks players in ESPN’s top 100 rankings.
Brunson rose 35 spots, leaping from 67th to 32nd place after a breakout season. Randle climbed 26 spots from 71st last year to 45th.
Mitchell Robinson (100th), Immanuel Quickley (92nd), Josh Hart (91st) and RJ Barrett (71st) were the other Knicks who made the list.
NBA GMs Voted Knicks as 5th Seed in the East
The Knicks will finish as the fifth seed again in the Eastern Conference, according to the annual NBA GM survey.
They drew 7% of the votes to rank fifth, just 1% behind the projected fourth seed Philadelphia 76ers. The 76ers are still a big question mark pending resolution of disgruntled James Harden’s trade request.
A considerable part of the GMs’ confidence in the Knicks is having Tom Thibodeau. The Knicks coach was tied with Memphis’ Taylor Jenkins as the head coach with the best defensive schemes. Thibodeau and Jenkins got 13% of the votes, with Miami’s Erik Spoelstra as the runaway top choice with 40%.
Brunson was the only Knicks player who received votes in two individual categories: best leader and active player who will become the best head coach someday.
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Knicks Coach Tom Thibodeau Reacts to NBA’s Load Management Findings