Knicks reward Tom Thibodeau with 3-year contract extension

NEW YORK — Tom Thibodeau helped pry open the New York Knicks’ championship window.

The franchise rewarded his efforts with the opportunity to see the job through.

The Knicks and Thibodeau, who had one year left on his deal, agreed to a three-year extension on Wednesday that will keep the culture-driving workhorse coach in New York through the 2027-28 season.

The extension is well-deserved: Thibodeau is fresh off of one of the best seasons in Knicks history.

Despite losing Julius Randle to a late-January season-ending shoulder injury, losing Mitchell Robinson for the majority of the regular season and half of the playoffs, a mid-season trade sending R.J. Barrett and Immanuel Quickley to the Toronto Raptors for OG Anunoby and Precious Achiuwa, and a barrage of injuries the Knicks were forced to address in a trade deadline deal for Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks, Thibodeau’s Knicks still finished with 50 wins, the Eastern Conference’s No. 2 seed, and a Game 7 appearance in the second round of the playoffs — a game the Knicks lost with Randle, Robinson, Bogdanovic and Anunoby out due to injury, and both Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart playing hurt.

It was a commendable job from the man in charge, and entering the final season of his contract, the Knicks rewarded Thibodeau with an extension, giving the coach who put in place the blue-collar culture on display at Madison Square Garden an opportunity to see it through, this time with a roster — after re-signing Anunoby and trading for Mikal Bridges — better-positioned to compete with the Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers for a shot at the Boston Celtics’ Eastern Conference crown, and ultimately an NBA title.

The Knicks have made the playoffs three times in the four seasons since Thibodeau took the job after a three-year stint with the Minnesota Timberwolves and a five-year run with the Chicago Bulls.

He boasts a 175-143 record in New York, a 527-389 record all-time, and won Coach of the Year in 2021 but was snubbed from the top-three in 2024 despite the circumstances under which he captained the Knicks to the East’s No. 2 seed.

With this extension, Thibodeau will see through this Knicks’ championship window.

Brunson recently signed a four-year contract extension worth $156.5 million and has the ability to decline the player option on the final year of his deal to test free agency in 2028.

Anunoby’s five-year, $212.5 million contract also has a player option in 2028, and if Randle were to sign a four-year extension in New York (he becomes eligible for a $181.5 million max extension on Aug. 3), his would expire in 2028, as well.

Bridges will also become eligible for a two-year extension on Oct. 1 — which will expire in the summer of 2028. Thibodeau’s deal projects to keep him in town for the same amount of time as the pillars the franchise has built its title-contention hopes.

In the second-to-last year of his deal, Thibodeau maintained his desire to remain head coach of the Knicks. He addressed a potential extension after his depleted Knicks lost to the Indiana Pacers, 130-109, in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

“That’s something that my agent will take care of,” he said. “The Knicks have been great to me. This is where I want to be.”

With this extension, Thibodeau can continue calling MSG — or the Knicks’ Tarrytown training facility — home, and he has an opportunity as head coach to see through something he’s only done as an assistant.

The ever-so elusive trip to the NBA Finals evaded Thibodeau in his five years coaching the Bulls, his closest shot derailed via gentleman’s sweep in a conference finals loss to LeBron James and the Miami Heat in 2011. He has since suffered four second-round playoff exits, though the back-to-back appearances in New York are promising given the injuries threatening to derail the Knicks’ success last season.

The Knicks are hoping injuries are a thing of the past, and with a deep rotation only in need of a backup center behind the oft-injured Robinson, Thibodeau is in position to replicate the success he enjoyed as a member of Doc Rivers’ staff when the Celtics defeated the Los Angeles Lakers for the 2008 NBA championship.

This time around, however, the road to a title inevitably runs through Thibodeau’s old stomping grounds, and now armed with the stability of an extension set to run in line with the contracts of his star players, Thibodeau can see through something that hasn’t happened in over 50 years.

A parade in New York City as a result of a Knicks championship.

____