Knicks Need More Depth For Future

The New York Knicks are looking for ways to improve their team for the future.

During the playoff run, the Knicks struggled with depth, which has been a common criticism of Tom Thibodeau's teams throughout his head coaching career.

Bleacher Report writer Zach Buckley emphasized New York's need to add some depth to the bench this offseason.

"Are we really going to use the 'Tom Thibodeau plays his starters too much' angle in 2025? In a word: yeah," Buckley wrote.

"The collective workload of New York's first five feels like a team-wide temptation of fate. All five Knicks starters ranked among this season's top 25 in minutes per game. As a whole, New York's opening group logged 940 minutes together (not counting the playoffs). That not only easily paced the Association, it almost doubled the floor time of this season's third-most used lineup (the Pistons starters who played 491 minutes together)."

"While clearly a lot of this stems from Thibs' coaching philosophy, maybe the front office could get him to rethink things by giving him more reliable reserves than, say, streak-scorer Cameron Payne and rebounding specialist Precious Achiuwa. That might be wishful thinking, but something needs to change with these seemingly untenable workloads."

The Knicks have one of the best starting lineups in the league, but when they get exposed like they have against the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, they don't have many reinforcements to rely on.

This could be a result of Thibodeau's lack of faith and trust, his philosophy on short rotations, or both. Either way, the Knicks aren't realizing their full potential, and it is preventing them from getting all the way to the NBA Finals.

Perhaps a few adjustments to the bench during the offseason is what the Knicks need to finally get to where they want to be.

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