NBA insider Brian Windhorst has offered his thoughts on how one big New York Knicks trade undercut Tom Thibodeau.
Tom Thibodeau’s teams are well-known for sharing two common traits. One is a very tight rotation of players, and the second is a strong defense.
The 2024-25 New York Knicks stuck to the formula of Tom Thibodeau relying heavily on his starters. And is it one of the reasons attributed for his firing.
But where the Knicks actually took a step back this past season was on defense. Despite having a strong record, they were not as good as they were the previous year.
The Knicks allowed more points than the Orlando Magic, Boston Celtics and Miami Heat, after ranking first in the East in team defense in 2023-24.
| New York Knicks | Points allowed | Conference rank |
| 2024-25 | 9,158 | 4th |
| 2023-24 | 8,873 | 1st |
The New York Knicks clinched a major trade days before the season, acquiring Karl-Anthony Towns from the Minnesota Timberwolves, in exchange for Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle.
And unlike Draymond Green who pointed to the Mikal Bridges trade as reason for the Knicks’ unfulfilling season, NBA insider Brian Windhorst believes it was the Karl-Anthony Towns trade that knocked the team off-course.
He argues this was a trade made by Knicks president Leon Rose, and not at Tom Thibodeau’s behest.
Windhorst told The Hoop Collective: “I thought one of the things that the Knicks did a great job of with this was just how well that there seemed to be alignment from the front office to the coach to the team.
“And while, you know, they didn’t win, they weren’t in the finals, they were making progress and and even after the Bridges trade, which I think was obviously controversial and definitely risky, I still liked where they were.
“And then the KAT trade happens, and that that’s a Leon Rose trade, clearly.”
Windhorst says he does not believe Towns matched the traits of the players the Knicks had previously looked to bring to the team.
“They did a really good job of aligning the players that they acquired to the way the coach wanted to coach.
“Thibs wanted hard workers, high effort, low drama grinders, defense first. Brunson’s not defense first, but certainly played the same type of style that Thibs always wanted from his point guards.”
Amid the fallout from the series defeat to the Indiana Pacers, claims were made that Karl-Anthony Towns’ defense had frustrated some of his New York Knicks’ teammates.
This came amid criticism from Magic Johnson, although another former player Austin Rivers came out with a strong defense of Towns.
The Knicks won 51 games during the regular season and reached the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 25 years. But this was not enough to save Thibodeau’s job.
Windhorst admits there are positives and negatives to Towns’ game, but ultimately felt he was a bad fit for the team Thibodeau was trying to create.
He said: “He’s an All-NBA player who’s on a supermax, like he’s extremely successful, but that is not typically your Tom Thibodeau player.
“That trade, really, and even though I do think that there was merit to that trade, but that trade was where the first time I was like, ‘wow, I am surprised that Thibs would be on board with this’.”
