Ex-Bulls Joakim Noah, Tom Thibodeau and Derrick Rose to meet again in Minnesota, New York
The Knicks and the Timberwolves are pairing up to create one of the stranger home-and-home runs in recent NBA memory. The two franchises are hardly longtime rivals and they play just twice a year, but the teams have been instructed to play those two games in three nights starting Wednesday night in Minnesota, followed by a Friday night showing half a country away in New York City.
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The more goofiness the better, for these two clubs. The Wolves haven’t made the postseason since 2004, and though the Knicks have dropped into the playoffs a few times since the team’s James Dolan-led upheaval in 2001, the squad’s stay away from the realm of the relevant has been dutifully documented.
This season’s Chicago Bulls connection brings a new twist. Former Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau runs the Wolves now alongside former Knicks general manager Scott Layden, long after being kept from a Knicks head coaching gig for various reasons, and months after Knicks president (and former Bulls coach) Phil Jackson declined to hand the reins of his team over to the 2010-11 Coach of the Year, and hire Thibodeau as his head coach.
Thibs will coach against a Knicks team featuring the two All-Stars he worked with in Chicago: Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah. Jackson acquired both during the offseason for the price of Robin Lopez and, in free agent Noah’s case, a four-year, $72 million deal. Those moves came two summers after Knicks star Carmelo Anthony spurned Thibodeau and the Bulls to re-sign for more money with the lottery-bound Knicks.
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At 8-9 (New York) and 5-12 (especially, with the Timberwolves) neither side is exactly where they want to be heading into the first meeting.
Especially Noah, who stayed on the bench for the final 22 minutes plus of his team’s overtime win over Charlotte on Friday evening, prior to contributing just two points and six rebounds alongside four blocks and four assists in nearly 38 combined minutes against Charlotte on Saturday and Oklahoma City on Monday evening.
The 31-year old Noah, averaging career-lows in points and rebounds in the first year of that $72 million deal, looked back on his time with Thibodeau on Tuesday prior to his new team’s two meetings with his old coach’s, uh, new team. From the New York Daily News:
“He always told me I would miss him when he was gone,” Noah said. “He was right.”
“Thibs is great. I’m really happy for him. He cares about winning. Our run in Chicago, I’ll never forget. Some of the best times in my life. I got a lot of love for Thibs.
“A lot of great memories more than disappointment,’’ Noah added. “We came close to winning a championship. It didn’t happen. They were great times overall.’’
After acknowledging that he and Noah, to use Joakim’s words, used to “butt heads,” Thibodeau briefly detailed the back and forth:
“I think it’s just being truthful,’’ Thibodeau said. “Jo is a very bright guy, so we shared ideas with each other. And I’d rather have a guy be honest and then you can give him the reasons why you feel a certain way.’’
[…]
“One year, we lost all our point guards and we ran our offense through him,’’ Thibodeau said. “We ended up winning 48 games. He was defensive player of the year, fourth in MVP, and helped save our season.’’
He did, in 2013-14. But that seems ever so long ago.
A clearly massive (then called “minor,” per the typical corp-speak of the Chicago Bulls organization) knee operation for Joakim followed 2013-14 campaign, and Noah’s game completely fell off. Bulls and Thibodeau’s backers will point to a litany of injuries and setbacks unassociated with coach Thibodeau’s time with the team (which ended following 2014-15) – last season’s shoulder surgery, the ankle (he’s a game-time decision for Wednesday night with an ankle sprain) and hamstring injuries and the illness that knocked him out of two contests last week.
They’d be working with a shortened memory in that area of expertise, though, as Chicago Bulls observers noticed Thibodeau’s propensity to overplay his spindly center through blowouts and even close games long before Thibs’ misuse of his center became go-to internet fodder.
Knicks fans and national TV watchers that looked on fearfully as Thibodeau pushed youngsters Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins into 38 minutes apiece in a blowout Wolves win over Philadelphia recently probably couldn’t help but wonder if Thibodeau and the Bulls more or less ruined Noah’s chances for any sort of post-Chicago career long, long ago. The overuse and refusal to reveal the setback needed to inform the “minor” knee operation from 2014 clearly have taken a toll.
Lakers Twitter is rife with complaints, even in a turnaround year, just about every night regarding the playoff Luol Deng. The former Bulls swingman and heavy-minutes user is only 31, but like Noah he plays far older. He also, like Noah, currently averages a career low in points and rebounds, contributing just 6.4 points and 5.2 rebounds in 24 minutes in his first year with Los Angeles. Luol has started each game, but shoots just 33 percent.
The one player to emerge scot-free, in a basketball sense? It’s pushing it, but Derrick Rose seems somewhat absolved from the taint.
The Knicks guard has improved upon his desultory play from 2014-15 and 2015-16 to contribute 16.8 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4.9 assists for the Knicks. Average work, to be fair, but an uptick nevertheless.
Famously, Rose sat out the entire 2012-13 season after tearing his ACL in April, 2012. While other Bulls toiled, Rose made sure his body was in peak form despite rampant criticism. He also took a longer route in 2013-14, after tearing the meniscus in his left knee. While players like Iman Shumpert and Russell Westbrook returned far sooner from each of those devastating injuries, Rose made sure he was fully comfortable in his move back into the on-court spotlight.
Thibodeau, watching from afar, was quick to defend his former star:
“I hate to see any player, particularly one that I’ve coached and I know as well as I know him … and I know the type of person that he is and I know what he’s gone through,’’ Thibodeau said. “I think it’s very difficult to go through one season where you’ve missed an entire season, but to go through three seasons the way he did and to get through it, it’s great.”
That’s nice, but one should also recall that this is a contract year for Rose. After sitting for 201 of the final 328 contests in his max contract turn for Chicago, Derrick (who, prior to last season, talked about saving himself for a contract extension some 20 months before his contract expired), is in line for a new deal:
“I haven’t talked to them about it,” Rose said of an extension. “It’s been more about winning games. We’ll see. I’m more concerned with trying to win games, but it’s something I’d have to talk about with my family and team.”
A new contract, maxed-out, would provide Rose with $75 million over three years until he turns 32. For someone that hardly seems a fit in what Phil Jackson and coach Jeff Hornacek are trying to pull off on the offensive-end, this seems like a stretch. Then again, Jackson is the triangle offense obsessive that dealt for Rose (amongst several other anti-triangle types) in the first place, so who knows what we’ll see?
With Thibodeau and Jackson? We had an idea what we’d see.
Phil Jackson owns a long memory, and he does recall Jeff Van Gundy’s derisive (and, a generation latter, rather insensitive in ways that JVG admirably later copped to) comments about Jackson’s love for the triangle and Native American culture, referring to him as “Big Chief Triangle” during the 1996-97 season.
Jackson later discussed Van Gundy’s head coaching gig with his Knick bosses in 1999, while Van Gundy was still coach of the Knicks. In a season that saw JVG eventually lead New York to its first Finals in over a quarter-century.
Tom Thibodeau was Van Gundy’s assistant for those years, and as Marc Berman of the New York Post reminds, Thibs initially found his pro coaching inspiration from the late Bill Musselman – a man who Jackson clashed with in the CBA, prior to calling out Musselman’s propensity for hiring ex-NBA washouts (as opposed to the more dignified project-types that Jackson enjoyed patting himself on the back for working with) to ring up his championship minor league squads.
Jackson carped about Musselman’s ways in a top-selling book some two decades prior to declining to even offer Thibodeau, a Knicks assistant from 1996 through 2004, an interview last offseason.
“Everything worked out fine for everybody,’’ Thibodeau said of the Jackson snub. “This job worked out perfectly — the one I wanted. They got a great coach. It’s fine.’’
Well, it’s not exactly “fine,” but this will be an interesting few days for each team. Far more interesting than Timberwolves/Knicks tilts usually come.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
