Jeff Van Gundy joined Sirius XM NBA Radio and shared his thoughts on his former assistant Tom Thibodeau.
Thibodeau is among the candidates for the New York Knicks coaching position,with the team preparing for the next season.
Van Gundy believes that the former Chicago and Minnesota head coach deserves another opportunity in the NBA.
“Well I feel a little uncomfortable talking about a situation that is fluid and they have a coach in place that I worked with in USA Basketball in Mike Miller, who’s an absolutely fantastic basketball coach.
But irrespective of the Knicks, Tom Thibodeau is a great, great basketball coach. Like, great. And I think unfortunately for him the perception of him on the sidelines as this gruff, nasty dude is not even close to who is he personally. Like, he is a great guy. He’s fun to be around. He’s enjoyable to be around, and he loves basketball. He loves NBA basketball and he works at it and he is elite in his profession.
I hope he gets another opportunity to be a head coach because if you look at his body of work he certainly deserves it and any team that may interview him or hire him would be very fortunate to have him as a head coach.
He gets thought of as a defensive coach but if you look at his best teams in Chicago and in Minnesota, they were very high-level, statistically speaking, offensive teams and I think it’s been overlooked when people try to evaluate Tom from the outside.
Tremendous, well-balanced, good player development – he’s gotten young players much, much better. So not speaking about the Knicks job, but speaking in general, Tom Thibodeau is one of the best coaches in the world and I hope to see him get another head job,” Van Gundy said, per SNY.tv.
Along with Thibodeau, Kenny Atkinson and Mike Woodson could become the next Knicks’ head coach under president Leon Rose.