Don Doucette visited Tom Thibodeau during the Celtics’ run to the 2008 NBA championship and asked his former player at Salem (Mass.) State to get together for some postgame conversation.
“And he said, ‘Oh, geez, I don’t have the time,'” Doucette recalled Saturday in a phone interview. “So he said, ‘How about this summer?’ I called him and he was off to coach the summer-league team.
“I used to bust him and say there are only so many ways you can defend a screen-and-roll. And he’d say, ‘I bet I can find another.’ That focus and ability to concentrate so intensely is what makes him so good.”
It’s also what will make him the 18th head coach in Bulls history.
Though no official announcement will come until after Thibodeau serves as associate head coach for the Celtics in the NBA Finals, multiple sources confirmed the longtime assistant accepted a three-year deal worth roughly $6.5 million.
Sources indicated Thibodeau, 50, is expected to keep Pete Myers on his staff and bring with him former Bulls and current Thunder assistant Ron Adams. Other candidates include Thunder assistant Maurice Cheeks, former Knicks assistant Andy Greer and former Kings coach Eric Musselman.
Former Bull Rick Brunson will be considered for a player development role, joining expected holdover Randy Brown. Mike Wilhelm will continue as advance scout.
Thibodeau’s association with Creative Artists Agency — under whose umbrella LeBron James’ agent, Leon Rose, sits — will do nothing to quell speculation James is headed to the Bulls in free agency.
Thibodeau has served as an assistant with seven teams over 18 NBA seasons, finishing in the top 10 defensively 15 times. But sources said Thibodeau wowed executive vice president John Paxson and general manager Gar Forman with creative offensive ideas centered on drive-and-kick and pick-and-roll schemes, as well as thoughts on player development.
This doesn’t surprise those who have known Thibodeau the longest.
“Tom’s an overachiever,” George Linn, 74, his high school coach at New Britain (Conn.), said in a phone interview. “He never had superior talent but was a competitor like you wouldn’t believe. He was always on the floor after loose balls. And his teammates voted him captain because of his great leadership ability.”
This ability stood out as Thibodeau beat the bushes to rise through the coaching ranks. After four seasons at his alma mater, including his only season of head coaching experience in 1984-85, Thibodeau joined childhood friend Peter Roby’s staff at Harvard.
This is where Thibodeau and Roby would drive the Eastern seaboard, catching Jim Calhoun’s practices at Northeastern, Gary Williams’ at Boston College, Rick Pitino’s at Providence. The late Bill Musselman, who later hired Thibodeau as a Timberwolves assistant, served as a huge influence from his days coaching Albany in the CBA.
“Tom always loved and respected the game,” Roby, now the athletic director at Northeastern, said in a phone interview. “We spent a lot of time trying to get better and learn as coaches. And Tom spent so much time working with kids individually to help them improve.”
Roby laughs at those who say Thibodeau’s reputation as a workaholic could be a negative. The coaching lifer never has married, has no children and few hobbies.
“So what?” Roby said. “This is a guy that came out of New Britain and worked for everything he’s gotten. He’s a blue-collar guy with a great family that he cares a great deal about, and he’s always been focused on trying to make people around him better.
“There’s nothing wrong with focus as long as it doesn’t make you so narrow that you become a bad person. And based on my friendship, he hasn’t lost perspective on what’s important.
“Tom has always been the kind of guy who people liked. He loves to laugh and give people the needle. That’s what I mean about his perspective. He appreciates people for who they are. He doesn’t play favorites.”
The irony for such a known defensive mind is that he barely bothered to play that end during his playground and Division III playing days.
“He must be making up for all those transgressions when he wasn’t playing any ‘D,'” Roby said, laughing. “There weren’t many shots he didn’t like.”
Added Doucette: “He’s one of the worst defensive players I’ve ever coached.”
In turn, at least as an assistant, players consider him one of the best at communication and development. Yao Ming used to bring Thibodeau with him to China for summer workouts.
And Kobe Bryant, who used to work out as a teenage prodigy in the mid-’90s with Thibodeau, then a 76ers assistant, paid him the ultimate compliment during the 2008 NBA Finals.
“He’s awesome,” Bryant said. “I’ve been facing his defenses here for some time, and they’re tough — very, very tough. Every single team he’s been on has had great strategies and physical defenses.
“He has an unfair advantage. He started drilling me, NBA basketball drills, when I was 14. So he kind of has inside information on what I like to do because he taught me most of the stuff.”
This teaching ability, his former players say, is what sets him apart from most assistants.
“‘Tibs’ did wonders for Larry (Johnson),” Brunson said in a phone interview of their Knicks days. “They formed a unique bond, and remember: Larry wasn’t a power player anymore because of a back injury. Tom taught him how to play the finesse game. He got him better.
“Look at Yao’s numbers when we were in Houston. That’s Tom. He works players hard. But they respect him because he knows what he’s talking about and understands when to push the pedal and when to let up.”
There’s no letup now. The Bulls’ future is Thibodeau’s.
