{"id":75839,"date":"2025-06-04T08:45:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T08:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/75839\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T08:45:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T08:45:10","slug":"stephen-a-smith-calls-leon-rose-coward-for-tom-thibodeau-statement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/75839\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith calls Leon Rose ‘coward’ for Tom Thibodeau statement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen A. Smith isn\u2019t happy with Knicks president Leon Rose\u2019s \u201cweak ass statement\u201d attempting to justify Tom Thibodeau\u2019s firing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we all as New Yorkers should find Leon Rose\u2019s statement offensive,\u201d Smith said Tuesday on \u201cNBA Today<\/a>.\u201d \u201cGet the hell in front of a microphone and a camera and answer questions. Stop being a coward \u2026 that\u2019s how he\u2019s been acting as president of the New York Knicks when it comes to communicating with the media and articulating the decisions that you make and why they are being made.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Rose\u2019s statement after the shocking ouster, he said the Knicks are \u201csingularly focused on winning a championship for our fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knicks president Leon Rose in the 2024 NBA Playoffs. Charles Wenzelberg\/New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care about that damn statement,\u201d Smith continued in his rant. \u201cI want to see Leon Rose stand before the camera and justify firing a man that just took you within two games of a berth to the NBA Finals right after you decided to trade five picks for a guy that never even made an All-Star.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose assumed his role in 2020 and has not done a solo press conference with independent media since.<\/p>\n

Stephen A. Smith believes Knicks president Leon Rose owes fans and media more of an explanation regarding the firing of Tom Thibodeau. NBA Today<\/p>\n

\u201cLeon Rose has done a damn good job, nobody can deny that,\u201d Smith admitted. \u201cBut it hasn\u2019t been a flawless situation. There are moves that could\u2019ve been made that could\u2019ve better positioned the New York Knicks to be in a championship situation \u2026 But it hasn\u2019t happened \u2014 then you\u2019re gonna issue some weak ass statement like, \u2018we really, really care.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Eastern Conference finals run this postseason was the Knicks\u2019 deepest since 2000, when they also lost to the Pacers in six games.<\/p>\n

The Knicks made the playoffs four times under Thibodeau\u2019s stewardship.<\/p>\n

Tom Thibodeau coached the Knicks to a 226-174 record in his five seasons in New York. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Smith wants more answers from both Rose and team owner James Dolan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt emanates from a James Dolan-run organization, who doesn\u2019t want to communicate with the media himself,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThey don\u2019t have to answer to anybody because they know that Knicks fans are still gonna show up at Madison Square Garden patronizing their product \u2026 We can\u2019t expect Leon Rose to because, since James Dolan has arrived, that\u2019s not something that he likes and Leon Rose seems to fit right in with that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith isn\u2019t happy with Knicks president Leon Rose\u2019s \u201cweak ass statement\u201d attempting to justify Tom Thibodeau\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,130,7093,6,191,66,2086,3647,2603,1416],"class_list":{"0":"post-75839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-leon-rose","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-new-york-knicks","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-sports-entertainment","15":"tag-sports-media","16":"tag-stephen-a-smith","17":"tag-tom-thibodeau"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114624221948103197","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}