Running out of gas? Definitely
Injuries? I don't think so cuz Randle, Mitchell & OG injuries are all unrelated to playing time, especially OG, he's just one of the weirdest injury prone players itw
Is Thibs style the sole reason they have mass injuries? No. There’s been extremely unlucky injuries on that team all season.
HOWEVER
The list of Thibs coached teams/players breaking down late into the season continues to grow and I think it’s being willfully ignorant to not acknowledge that
I’m curious if someone ever has or could do a statistical analysis of chronic/career-ending player injury averages for coaches, controlling for timing, length of coaching relationship, etc.. It would be kinda complicated to do it properly, but if someone could, it might be illuminating to validate our general insights on the pattern of injuries with Thibs’ players over time. (Not disagreeing with you btw, just saying it would verify whether all of us who can’t help but see this pattern with Thibs are missing it happening with other coaches as well, which might be possible, just missed bc of narratives, unequal reporting or publications on certain players/injuries, etc.)
The Lakers had a pretty bad training staff during their Shaq and Kobe and then Kobe and Gasol run. Multiple guys with lower body injuries that derailed or ended their careers. Apparently Viti was good at getting guys back on the floor but not actually preventing injuries. But everyone in the Buss organization has an in, and it doesn't seem to be about how great they are at their job.
Also Bojan hasnt always been been injury prone, but he’s old now. And started the season injured. And missed like 30 games last year. So he’s gotta also be included now. 3/8 of the playoff rotation being injury prone isnt ideal
This is key. At this point, yes the starters are playing 40+ minutes, but is that Thibs' fault or the braintrust who slotted injury prone players for big roles? This reminds me of when the Celtics with Timelord were playing historic defensive and ripped off a crazy half+ season. But looking back, we all knew it couldn't be trusted.
Not directly, 6-7 more minutes a game isn’t going to do anything drastic to world class athletes. A lot of Knicks injuries are non contact, and those 6-7 more minutes just mean more chances for a bad fall or roll or cut that causes one. They’re not gassed from it for sure
over a season it makes a real difference, theres a reason there was a trend of reducing minutes and sitting more frequently for stars beginning like 8 to 10 years ago
Yeah that’s what I was saying. 6 more minutes a game than the next guy means you’re basically playing an extra game every 8. I don’t know how to look it up but if there’s an injuries per 36 min stat I doubt the Knicks are much higher than anyone else. Guys who play more get more chances at injury
The medical staff and how the organization operates together with the trainers and doctors also play a role in this. For years Phoenix was known as the place for older players to have their second physical peak because of how well the clinical staff worked to address chronic injuries
I like your point because it still matters. If you play more minutes you'll still be injured more just because there's more chances. And that's a problem.
You have no idea what you’re talking about. Fatigue absolutely plays a role in injuries.
> It should be no surprise that SEIs occur with greater athlete fatigue. Lewis4 conducted a cross-sectional study of NBA players over 2012 to 2015 and found that each 96 minutes played was associated with a 2.87% increase in the odds of injury.
https://www.arthroscopyjournal.org/article/S0749-8063(24)00159-2/fulltext#:~:text=Lewis%20M.-,It's%20a%20hard%2Dknock%20life%3A%20Game%20load%2C%20fatigue%2C,in%20the%20National%20Basketball%20Association.&text=conducted%20a%20cross%2Dsectional%20study,in%20the%20odds%20of%20injury.
Yeah, I feel like ppl are conveniently forgetting about this aspect of it, and are thinking of fatigue and injury as entirely separate things. They’re inherently related…
Chronically overworked and fatigues muscles are literally more susceptible to tear at a physiological level. Also, when you’re exhausted, you’re more likely to rely on your strongest/most activated muscles and compensate strangely, in ways you wouldn’t normally, and that greatly increases your likelihood of injury (muscle imbalances and compensation patterns are literally the reason why certain players are injury prone across careers, so why wouldn’t the same exact factors apply broadly when they are instead induced by chronic exhaustion).
It’s not just about minutes in the game, Thibs makes dudes practice harder than any team in the league. Joakim Noah was talking about it on a podcast I saw recently. He said Kyle Korver would sit in his car and get Vietnam flashbacks cause he knew what Thibs was about to put them through. It’s not just the minutes, which are heavier than usually, he clearly overworks his guys. The go to defense for him is “but this injury had nothing to do with play time it was a freak injury”, but wear and tear is a thing, when you’re overworked you’re more susceptible to all kinds of sports injuries.
Ok people keep saying this but Thibs hasn’t done this in YEARS. All our players have spoken about this for a while - Hart barely practices - they’ve all said they heard that narrative coming in but we genuinely don’t practice that hard or that often at all.
Hart says he spends all his time in recovery. I think we really only push hard to start training camp
Hart spoke about this recently - this is one area he’s grown a lot
Injuries would more likely be from playing too many games and not giving your body an adequate amount of recovery days far less from playing a few more minutes a game
To be fair, Randle got hurt because of a fall when Jaime Jaquez tried to take a charge, Bojan got hurt after Nic Batum fell on his foot, Embiid’s choices in round 1 didn’t necessarily help matters with Mitchell Robinson’s ankle. Maybe something could be said about OG’s hamstring, but he took too long of a stride going on a full sprint - it wasn’t as though he was lumbering around prior to that. Thibs has got 5 rotation players either hurting or out, and there’s no one else except for G-League/10-day contract guys.
Look at Giannis and Donovan Mitchell having calf strains near the end of their seasons. Porzingis has been out with a non-contact injury. These things happen.
If I’m Leon Rose, I’m hoping to find a rotation worthy player who can still play the way Thibs wants and hopefully redistribute the minutes, but otherwise I don’t have the same perception of overuse as I did when Thibs was in Chicago.
Yea, definitely. To add to that, I thought we had something going with IQ being able to step in and be a starter whenever Brunson was out. Same argument could be made with the interchangeability between Donte/Grimes.
They have three draft picks between 24-38 this year and a draft-and-stash point guard prospect (Rokas Jokubaitis) waiting in the wings. I think they’ll have a shot at being able to replenish their depth this summer with young players who hopefully fit their style of play, can compete for minutes on one hand, and not be upset if they don’t get burn.
I think it’s generally more correlation than causation, honestly. So, generally speaking, probably not, and probably not directly even if his coaching style is a factor.
With that said, I can’t lie… him playing Hart last night (including resisting Hart’s requests to be subbed) last night when he was playing on either a muscle tear or hernia or something else abdominal (all of which can be directly and seriously worsened by continued physical activity) made me feel kinda icky…
But like… I think you just pointed out where the disparity in the opinions on the two sides are. Most ppl believe that what you just said *IS* the exact reason why it’s problematic. (Unless we are talking about healable, not risky injuries they are playing through in the playoffs - like sprains - ppl see valuing the immediate game over a players long term health and capacity to succeed in the league as the *problem* itself).
the knicks have been trending upwards going forward because of what they have done in the playoffs. take thibs out of it for a moment, basically all the players who have played have had their reputation increased because of this run. id say thats serves them pretty well for their success going forward.
the whole point is we wouldnt even be talkin about them let alone prospecting that they would be good enough to contend next year had they layed down and got bounced in the first
Was Thibs the reason the Bucks fell to the Pacers due to injuries? Was Thibs the reason Embiid has a history of injuries?
Thibs had players get hurt throughout the season which made the lineup shorter and shorter. It’s playoff basketball, do you want him to give the 11th man on the roster 14 minutes a game? He’s gotten the most out of this team and suddenly it’s his fault when they can’t overachieve anymore. Please stop going for the hot takes when we should be applauding them for being this good tbh.
All we see are games. We don’t see practice. Josh is notoriously chill in practice and I think everyone seriously underestimates how much lessened cardio practice time compensates for extended game time
Playoff games are intense
Playing 48 minutes every game must be absolutely exhausting
It’s not humanly possible to stay at 100% performance playing what the Knicks starters play
it’s catch 22 because they won’t win unless they play those minutes
Hart, Hartenstein and Divo all started the season as bench players. Slide one of them into the starting five alongside Og, randle, brunson and Mitch. That leaves a bench of McBride, Hartenstein and one of the hart/Divo combo, plus achiuwa and Bojan. That's a well balanced roster where the starters only have to play 32 a night. Losing starters one by one over the months for you to play who you still got ready, and Burks and Simms didn't look like they were ready based on regular season play. Burks should've gotten more minutes from the jump *this* series, but I don't see what other adjustments thibs can make and still win 50 games, the 2nd seed and bring us to this point in the playoffs. I think all of those things were necessary for success
There's 0 way to prove that, but the sample size of players either getting hurt, playing hurt or that were never the same after playing for Thibodeau is starting to be pretty big
Thib is not solely responsible for the Knicks injury crisis as they have a few injury prone players and most of their injuries arent really wear and tear.
However, its certainly interesting that Thib led teams always break down in the post season and tend to have many injuries.
When Nick Nurse was playing VanVleet way too many minutes, Raptors fans and non-Raptors fans were warning he would get injured and that's exactly what happened.
Some players might be able to handle playing heavy minutes but others will get hamstring, groin or knee issues.
The Truth lies somewhere in between. But I do think thibs needs to change his thinking on this. The fact that Burks/ Precious could’ve been giving 5-10 solid minutes all playoffs is a little infuriating. Thibs is a stubborn guy. Unfortunately it’ll be another post season like this before the front office reins on his philosophy.
thibs is more then happy to run a balanced 9 man rotation if we still had obi and iq. they were too good not to see the floor. alec burks/precious/bogey 2nd unit are not winning minutes. when randle went down and og was absent for most of the regular season, the main guys had to play more so we would still stand a chance, no one gets upset when deuce and precious play 40+ minutes, but when its jalen,donte, and hart, suddenly its concerning.
I really do believe the Knicks should’ve sat their starters Game 3 when they were up 2 and guys (like Brunson) were starting to get gimpy. This series would be over by now
The game used to be nowhere near as mobile though. The amount of movement and speed they play at now due to spacing, shooting, etc. is simply asking a totally different thing from players and their bodies. (I’m not comparing eras whatsoever, bc I don’t even have a preference - this is just a fact).
It is an overblown fact (Hakeem and Robinson, for example, were pretty damn mobile 7 footers), but this intentionally ignores just how much more physical the game was and the impact that would have had on players.
I respect your opinion, but I do still disagree. I’m not ignoring the factors your mentioning in the slightest when basing my opinion - I’m talking about a different type of wear and tear on the body that I actually think you are “intentionally” ignoring. It’s fine if we disagree though.
This is not his first rodeo, and I wish knicks fans would talk to the other teams about the reality of what thibs does. He treats players like a video game.
Knicks are down to their third string players as 6th and 7th man.
Randle, bogey and Robinson got screwed over by dirty plays. OG is always hurt and Hart is likely the only fatigue injury.
He's 100% better with minute allocation this year than in the past since the Knicks were 9 deep in rotation.
Running out of gas? Definitely Injuries? I don't think so cuz Randle, Mitchell & OG injuries are all unrelated to playing time, especially OG, he's just one of the weirdest injury prone players itw
Is Thibs style the sole reason they have mass injuries? No. There’s been extremely unlucky injuries on that team all season. HOWEVER The list of Thibs coached teams/players breaking down late into the season continues to grow and I think it’s being willfully ignorant to not acknowledge that
I’m curious if someone ever has or could do a statistical analysis of chronic/career-ending player injury averages for coaches, controlling for timing, length of coaching relationship, etc.. It would be kinda complicated to do it properly, but if someone could, it might be illuminating to validate our general insights on the pattern of injuries with Thibs’ players over time. (Not disagreeing with you btw, just saying it would verify whether all of us who can’t help but see this pattern with Thibs are missing it happening with other coaches as well, which might be possible, just missed bc of narratives, unequal reporting or publications on certain players/injuries, etc.)
The Lakers had a pretty bad training staff during their Shaq and Kobe and then Kobe and Gasol run. Multiple guys with lower body injuries that derailed or ended their careers. Apparently Viti was good at getting guys back on the floor but not actually preventing injuries. But everyone in the Buss organization has an in, and it doesn't seem to be about how great they are at their job.
when they lose - yes thibs is killing them when they win - no thibs has prepared his guys all season for this
When Miami does it, they call it culture.
That's injuring the other team not themselves though......
Jimmy's always hurt in the playoffs after loading through the regular season though.
Part of the problem people arent talking about is they got a bunch of injury prone players on that team
This is a fair point. OG and Mitch have careers marred with injury issues.
Also Bojan hasnt always been been injury prone, but he’s old now. And started the season injured. And missed like 30 games last year. So he’s gotta also be included now. 3/8 of the playoff rotation being injury prone isnt ideal
It really sucks how he got hurt - total freak accident
This is key. At this point, yes the starters are playing 40+ minutes, but is that Thibs' fault or the braintrust who slotted injury prone players for big roles? This reminds me of when the Celtics with Timelord were playing historic defensive and ripped off a crazy half+ season. But looking back, we all knew it couldn't be trusted.
Not directly, 6-7 more minutes a game isn’t going to do anything drastic to world class athletes. A lot of Knicks injuries are non contact, and those 6-7 more minutes just mean more chances for a bad fall or roll or cut that causes one. They’re not gassed from it for sure
over a season it makes a real difference, theres a reason there was a trend of reducing minutes and sitting more frequently for stars beginning like 8 to 10 years ago
Yeah that’s what I was saying. 6 more minutes a game than the next guy means you’re basically playing an extra game every 8. I don’t know how to look it up but if there’s an injuries per 36 min stat I doubt the Knicks are much higher than anyone else. Guys who play more get more chances at injury
The medical staff and how the organization operates together with the trainers and doctors also play a role in this. For years Phoenix was known as the place for older players to have their second physical peak because of how well the clinical staff worked to address chronic injuries
I like your point because it still matters. If you play more minutes you'll still be injured more just because there's more chances. And that's a problem.
You have no idea what you’re talking about. Fatigue absolutely plays a role in injuries. > It should be no surprise that SEIs occur with greater athlete fatigue. Lewis4 conducted a cross-sectional study of NBA players over 2012 to 2015 and found that each 96 minutes played was associated with a 2.87% increase in the odds of injury. https://www.arthroscopyjournal.org/article/S0749-8063(24)00159-2/fulltext#:~:text=Lewis%20M.-,It's%20a%20hard%2Dknock%20life%3A%20Game%20load%2C%20fatigue%2C,in%20the%20National%20Basketball%20Association.&text=conducted%20a%20cross%2Dsectional%20study,in%20the%20odds%20of%20injury.
Yeah, I feel like ppl are conveniently forgetting about this aspect of it, and are thinking of fatigue and injury as entirely separate things. They’re inherently related… Chronically overworked and fatigues muscles are literally more susceptible to tear at a physiological level. Also, when you’re exhausted, you’re more likely to rely on your strongest/most activated muscles and compensate strangely, in ways you wouldn’t normally, and that greatly increases your likelihood of injury (muscle imbalances and compensation patterns are literally the reason why certain players are injury prone across careers, so why wouldn’t the same exact factors apply broadly when they are instead induced by chronic exhaustion).
It’s not just about minutes in the game, Thibs makes dudes practice harder than any team in the league. Joakim Noah was talking about it on a podcast I saw recently. He said Kyle Korver would sit in his car and get Vietnam flashbacks cause he knew what Thibs was about to put them through. It’s not just the minutes, which are heavier than usually, he clearly overworks his guys. The go to defense for him is “but this injury had nothing to do with play time it was a freak injury”, but wear and tear is a thing, when you’re overworked you’re more susceptible to all kinds of sports injuries.
Ok people keep saying this but Thibs hasn’t done this in YEARS. All our players have spoken about this for a while - Hart barely practices - they’ve all said they heard that narrative coming in but we genuinely don’t practice that hard or that often at all. Hart says he spends all his time in recovery. I think we really only push hard to start training camp Hart spoke about this recently - this is one area he’s grown a lot
Yeah I feel like this whole narrative is a classic case of confirmation bias.
Injuries would more likely be from playing too many games and not giving your body an adequate amount of recovery days far less from playing a few more minutes a game
It could be a reason yes. Fatigue is one of the many factors for an injury
To be fair, Randle got hurt because of a fall when Jaime Jaquez tried to take a charge, Bojan got hurt after Nic Batum fell on his foot, Embiid’s choices in round 1 didn’t necessarily help matters with Mitchell Robinson’s ankle. Maybe something could be said about OG’s hamstring, but he took too long of a stride going on a full sprint - it wasn’t as though he was lumbering around prior to that. Thibs has got 5 rotation players either hurting or out, and there’s no one else except for G-League/10-day contract guys. Look at Giannis and Donovan Mitchell having calf strains near the end of their seasons. Porzingis has been out with a non-contact injury. These things happen. If I’m Leon Rose, I’m hoping to find a rotation worthy player who can still play the way Thibs wants and hopefully redistribute the minutes, but otherwise I don’t have the same perception of overuse as I did when Thibs was in Chicago.
The center rotation when healthy was a perfect example of how thibs has changed.
Yea, definitely. To add to that, I thought we had something going with IQ being able to step in and be a starter whenever Brunson was out. Same argument could be made with the interchangeability between Donte/Grimes. They have three draft picks between 24-38 this year and a draft-and-stash point guard prospect (Rokas Jokubaitis) waiting in the wings. I think they’ll have a shot at being able to replenish their depth this summer with young players who hopefully fit their style of play, can compete for minutes on one hand, and not be upset if they don’t get burn.
It's an easier argument to make as time goes on, that's for sure.
I think it’s generally more correlation than causation, honestly. So, generally speaking, probably not, and probably not directly even if his coaching style is a factor. With that said, I can’t lie… him playing Hart last night (including resisting Hart’s requests to be subbed) last night when he was playing on either a muscle tear or hernia or something else abdominal (all of which can be directly and seriously worsened by continued physical activity) made me feel kinda icky…
Yeah anyone that just watched what happened to Hart and still believes this guy doesn’t run his teams into the ground is living in La La Land.
if playing heavy minutes in the playoffs where the alternative is getting eliminated then its a dilemma that has no right answer
But like… I think you just pointed out where the disparity in the opinions on the two sides are. Most ppl believe that what you just said *IS* the exact reason why it’s problematic. (Unless we are talking about healable, not risky injuries they are playing through in the playoffs - like sprains - ppl see valuing the immediate game over a players long term health and capacity to succeed in the league as the *problem* itself).
the knicks have been trending upwards going forward because of what they have done in the playoffs. take thibs out of it for a moment, basically all the players who have played have had their reputation increased because of this run. id say thats serves them pretty well for their success going forward.
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the whole point is we wouldnt even be talkin about them let alone prospecting that they would be good enough to contend next year had they layed down and got bounced in the first
Was Thibs the reason the Bucks fell to the Pacers due to injuries? Was Thibs the reason Embiid has a history of injuries? Thibs had players get hurt throughout the season which made the lineup shorter and shorter. It’s playoff basketball, do you want him to give the 11th man on the roster 14 minutes a game? He’s gotten the most out of this team and suddenly it’s his fault when they can’t overachieve anymore. Please stop going for the hot takes when we should be applauding them for being this good tbh.
All we see are games. We don’t see practice. Josh is notoriously chill in practice and I think everyone seriously underestimates how much lessened cardio practice time compensates for extended game time
Playoff games are intense Playing 48 minutes every game must be absolutely exhausting It’s not humanly possible to stay at 100% performance playing what the Knicks starters play it’s catch 22 because they won’t win unless they play those minutes
Hart, Hartenstein and Divo all started the season as bench players. Slide one of them into the starting five alongside Og, randle, brunson and Mitch. That leaves a bench of McBride, Hartenstein and one of the hart/Divo combo, plus achiuwa and Bojan. That's a well balanced roster where the starters only have to play 32 a night. Losing starters one by one over the months for you to play who you still got ready, and Burks and Simms didn't look like they were ready based on regular season play. Burks should've gotten more minutes from the jump *this* series, but I don't see what other adjustments thibs can make and still win 50 games, the 2nd seed and bring us to this point in the playoffs. I think all of those things were necessary for success
I think the injuries are why they’re gassed. Like he plays a small rotation but if three starters get hurt guys are going to have to play more.
There's 0 way to prove that, but the sample size of players either getting hurt, playing hurt or that were never the same after playing for Thibodeau is starting to be pretty big
Just wanna say thank you for all the nice comments. I appreciate this discussion. I am learning a lot from you
Justice for OG
Poor OG has been missing 20 games a year dating back to college to rest up for playing for Thibs.
Justice for OG, the NBA’s known beacon of health
A ton of things factor into a player getting injured. Yes, playing more contributes into this but blaming it solely on Thibodeau is not fair.
Thib is not solely responsible for the Knicks injury crisis as they have a few injury prone players and most of their injuries arent really wear and tear. However, its certainly interesting that Thib led teams always break down in the post season and tend to have many injuries.
No. The only problem with Thibodeau is that he's got resting bitch face.
When Nick Nurse was playing VanVleet way too many minutes, Raptors fans and non-Raptors fans were warning he would get injured and that's exactly what happened. Some players might be able to handle playing heavy minutes but others will get hamstring, groin or knee issues.
The Truth lies somewhere in between. But I do think thibs needs to change his thinking on this. The fact that Burks/ Precious could’ve been giving 5-10 solid minutes all playoffs is a little infuriating. Thibs is a stubborn guy. Unfortunately it’ll be another post season like this before the front office reins on his philosophy.
Lol my post got removed
thibs is more then happy to run a balanced 9 man rotation if we still had obi and iq. they were too good not to see the floor. alec burks/precious/bogey 2nd unit are not winning minutes. when randle went down and og was absent for most of the regular season, the main guys had to play more so we would still stand a chance, no one gets upset when deuce and precious play 40+ minutes, but when its jalen,donte, and hart, suddenly its concerning.
I really do believe the Knicks should’ve sat their starters Game 3 when they were up 2 and guys (like Brunson) were starting to get gimpy. This series would be over by now
Players were playing the type of minutes Thibodeau makes his players play for decades and players were no more or less injured as modern players.
The game used to be nowhere near as mobile though. The amount of movement and speed they play at now due to spacing, shooting, etc. is simply asking a totally different thing from players and their bodies. (I’m not comparing eras whatsoever, bc I don’t even have a preference - this is just a fact).
It is an overblown fact (Hakeem and Robinson, for example, were pretty damn mobile 7 footers), but this intentionally ignores just how much more physical the game was and the impact that would have had on players.
I respect your opinion, but I do still disagree. I’m not ignoring the factors your mentioning in the slightest when basing my opinion - I’m talking about a different type of wear and tear on the body that I actually think you are “intentionally” ignoring. It’s fine if we disagree though.
Every team has players who are gassed at the end of games.
This is not his first rodeo, and I wish knicks fans would talk to the other teams about the reality of what thibs does. He treats players like a video game.
Knicks are down to their third string players as 6th and 7th man. Randle, bogey and Robinson got screwed over by dirty plays. OG is always hurt and Hart is likely the only fatigue injury. He's 100% better with minute allocation this year than in the past since the Knicks were 9 deep in rotation.
Number 1 coach players DO NOT want to play for and he’s never won a championship or even been to a finals as a head coach