Peak Delusion: The Knicks Reportedly Tried To Hire Joe Mazzulla Away From The Celtics After Firing Tom Thibodeau

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When despite having their most successful season in decades, when the Knicks decided to fire Tom Thibodeau, it's safe to say they didn't exactly have a plan. Well that's not exactly true. Initially, their plan was to try and pry well established coaches from their current teams

which went about as well as you would have imagined. Ultimately, the Knicks ended on Mike Brown, who I would say is fine. He'll potentially diversify their offense, there's no denying he made an impact in his early years with the Kings (48 and 46 wins) before getting fired, and if we're talking about the 10th choice on your list or whatever, you can certainly do a lot worse.

As it turns out, there was one other coach the Knicks tried to go after in an effort to finally get over the hump and win an NBA title after they canned Thibs and before settling on Brown. Apparently, it was none other than NBA Champion Joe Mazzulla

“…Yet it has also been whispered that the Knicks likely did some backchannel exploration to determine if there was any pathway to pursue Boston's Joe Mazzulla. There obviously was not … and then the Celtics extended Mazzulla's contract in August.”

I'm not going to sit here and clown the Knicks for wanting Joe Mazzulla to be their next head coach. No shit. The guy is one of the best coaches on planet earth. Not only was he the mastermind behind the historic 2022 Celtics defense, he's also responsible for the greatest offense in the history of the NBA (fact not opinion). He's a Champion. He owns the highest winning percentage as a head coach in NBA history. No team in the NBA has more regular season wins or playoff wins than the Joe Mazzulla Celtics since he took over. Any basketball team in existence should want Joe Mazzulla to be their head coach, which is why I look at this as more of a compliment than anything else. Of course the Celts were going to tell the Knicks to fuck off and then give Mazzulla a lifetime contract extension. Brad Stevens is no dummy. He knows what he has.

You have to understand, Psycho Joe is one of us. He was molded by the Boston Celtics long before he joined their staff the same way you and I were growing up. Why do you think it finally clicked and this team got over the hump?

It's why I'm so excited for this upcoming season. It's another challenge we get to see Joe attack. He proved he has what it takes to lead this team to the top of the mountain. That box is checked. Now, is a different type of challenge that requires a completely different skillset in my opinion. Now it's about development, maintaining the standard with unproven talent, and grinding out wins in ways you haven't really had to so far these last 3 years.

So it's no surprise that Joe Mazzulla is the latest name on that list of established coaches that the Knicks were delusional enough to think would leave their current job to take over at MSG. Unfortunately for them, they didn't realize Joe has a job for life with his hometown team who once their franchise player returns, is right back to contending for another NBA title. 

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