Riley, Van Gundy, Jeff discussed on The NBA Show
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A little bit overblown at times. I mean, I think the one kind of threw away that fits is that and I kind of mentioned this at the very, very end of the book and the epilogue. When they lost van Gundy when he resigned abruptly in the middle of a season in 2001, they lost really the last bit of their DNA because you know van Gundy was a Riley disciple and someone that literally Riley had exit meetings with his assistant coaches as well, and he would ask them what their thoughts were, what they thought they did well, what they wanted to improve on what their aspirations were. And so Riley has been going to because he was basically the youngest coach in the league when he got hired by far. I think it was like 34. He might not have even been that old. I can't remember, but when he was an assistant, Riley asked him, do you want to be a head coach in this league? And he said, well, you know, I guess so, I hadn't really thought about it. I never imagined that I could because I don't have a playing background I ever played in the league and Riley told me don't need that. Really, what you need to start doing is dressing better if you want to be at coach. You know, and work on the appearance a little bit, but he told him he was like, look, if you're confident and you work your tail off and the guy's respect you doesn't matter how tall you are, it doesn't matter whether you play it or not. I see the way you work around here, I see the way these guys respect you because you come in early. You leave late, you work hard, you know your stuff. You've been around the sport for a long time. That's enough. You just have to kind of sharpen some of the other stuff that you probably don't think about in terms of the way you carry yourself the way you talk the way you look to some extent. But anyway, so he trained pat. I'm sorry. He trades Jeff to kind of be ready for that. And he wanted to bring Jeff with them to Miami, the Nick said, no, because, you know, there's obviously tampering involved with pat's exit and pat was still under contract. So was Jeff. So they didn't let him go to Miami. But when Jeff resigned from the Knicks, really unexpectedly, that really took the last bits of really what that era was with them. And so the connection that I draw now is that Tom thibodeau was an assistant under Jeff. During those years, and he came back into the organization, they were a team that worked extremely hard that when you watched them, they were closing out on every shot, extremely hard. They didn't have, I mean, maybe they do have talent, but it's rot out, still it's their young guys. A lot of young guys on the roster. But also, I'm watching guys that I have not, you know, maybe roger feels differently, but I watched Derek rose. I watched him for plenty of years here in Chicago. You know, and he was never a special defender. I still don't think he's a special defender, but knows how to operate within what dividend wants to do and can play within a team system. They played within a really great system. I do think there was some good fortune. I won't necessarily, but you looked at the metrics last year and you looked at how teams were shooting on wide open shots and stuff like that and not just that, but I think I remember doing a strand this at one point, I think they had of the 13 guys in the league that had the biggest three point percentage improvement last year. The Knicks had like 5 of them. It was like rose, Randall, Barrett, Bullock, and I'm blanking on maybe one other guy. Maybe it was for, but they had a lot of guys kind of have career years from three last year, and they were really, really great at defending the three, but also even when they were leaving guys wide open. They were missing a lot of three. So there were probably some good fortune involved with that. And then this year, so there were similarities in terms of like the defense keeping them in games last year that they could win, even when their offense wasn't there. That was what the 90s next were all the time. They didn't have much offense. So their defense was keeping them in games all the time our winning games for them all the time. And last year's team did that too. Now it came back to bite them in the house when they played a team like the hawks that have a lot of offense and a lot of creators. So I think that was kind of the similarity that I took from it. They very much had a ceiling with that team last year. And I think they tried to address it. They certainly tried to address it with kimba and Evan fournier. I don't think that's necessarily the answer. I think we've kind of seen that. But you can see what they're trying to do and you can see what Tom's trying to do sometimes. And you can see some of the similarities, but the physicality is still a lot of different level from the 90s. And I think that that that's the major difference. They work hard and they worked really hard last year, but it was more than just a work hard thing. The 90s teams were feared. And there was never going to be that comparison. I don't think. Yeah, and quite frankly, the league's never going to let anyone get to a point. Never get physically where you're someone else fears you. They've just taken that completely out of the game. What I hear and when you're saying that, it's kind of the way I felt. They were both kind of under doggy type of teams. You know what I mean? Like they were both kind of like overachieving. I think the 90s Knicks probably have more star power overall, like guys that were, but they're overachievers. And Tim's a system is one that I think cities like New York, Philly, Chicago,.