The New York Knicks had a great season—51 wins, an Eastern Conference Finals run, Jalen Brunson looking like a superstar—and then they decided to blow it all up. Why? Who knows! But now, they’re out here looking like the kid who forgot about his homework until the morning it’s due.

Charles Barkley, never one to bite his tongue, went scorched-earth on live TV: “The Knicks gotta be the stu—— damn people in the world… You don’t have a plan? Now three coaches turned you down! What the hell are they gonna do?”

First, they fired Tom Thibodeau—the guy who actually turned this franchise around—without a backup plan. Not smart. Turns out, the Knicks had reasons to move on—even if they botched the execution. Thibs’ old-school style wore thin: starters like Jalen Brunson (37.8 playoff MPG), Mikal Bridge, and Josh Hart were run into the ground, while the NBA’s worst-scoring bench (21.4 PPG) rotted on the sidelines. Opponents cracked his stubborn schemes by playoffs, switching defenders onto Brunson and daring Thibs to adjust—he rarely did.

Then, they got hit with the ultimate NBA reality check: Nobody wants this job. Jason Kidd? Blocked. Ime Udoka? Nah. Chris Finch? The Timberwolves laughed that one off. And now, at least three other coaches have straight-up said, “I’m good.”

Charles Barkley Says What Everyone’s Thinking: The Knicks’ Coaching Search Is a Disaster Waiting to Happen

The Knicks aren’t just searching for a new head coach—they’re hunting for a unicorn. First, they need someone who can outperform Tom Thibodeau’s back-to-back 50-win seasons and this year’s Conference Finals appearance. Second, they have to convince someone that this isn’t the same old Knicks dysfunction. Good luck with that – even Charles Barkley took one look at this mess and declared, “No, I would not like to coach the New York Knicks… everybody was shocked” by Thibodeau’s firing. When a Hall of Famer who never shies from challenges won’t touch your job, that speaks volumes.

Welcome to the NBA’s version of purgatory: too successful to rebuild, too messy to lure top-tier coaches. Their dream candidates all got immediate “thanks but no thanks” responses from their current teams. These aren’t just rejections; they’re a brutal reality check about how the league views New York’s front office.

Plan B? The coaching carousel of retreads: Mike Budenholzer (fired by Milwaukee), Mike Brown (fired by Sacramento), or Michael Malone (another defense-first, minutes-crunching taskmaster—sound familiar?). Dark horse candidates like Taylor Jenkins generate all the enthusiasm of a mid-level exception signing.

But one thing’s clear: If they don’t nail this hire, they risk wasting Brunson’s prime and undoing all of Thibodeau’s progress. And in New York, where patience is thinner than the Knicks’ bench rotation, that’s a gamble they can’t afford to lose. The clock’s ticking—both on this coaching search, and on the Knicks’ credibility as a franchise that knows what it’s doing.