James Dolan seems to have the same methods regarding how he handles head coaches for both the New York Rangers and New York Knicks.
He has little patience and if he feels the team is not performing to expectation, he has no problem firing the head coach.
That’s been especially evident with the Rangers as the team has fired three coaches since 2021.
Both Gerard Gallant and Peter Laviolette were fired just one year removed from reaching the Eastern Conference Final and both of them only lasted two seasons with the Blueshirts.
The Knicks just shocked the NBA world by firing Tom Thibodeau after he helped lead the team to their first conference finals appearance since 2000 and really propelled the Knicks out of basketball purgatory.
However in both the Rangers and Knicks’ case, they possess a lot of talent and Dolan seems to believe that in order to unleash their full potential, a different voice is necessary.
The two men on the management side running the show, Chris Drury and Leon Rose, were not blamed for their team’s failure, but instead, Dolan chose to use his coaches as scapegoats, a trend that these Dolan-runned teams tend to follow.
It’s unclear if Dolan was the driving force in any of these coaching firings. He’s the owner though and it’s Dolan who makes the final decision at the end of the day.
Now, we’ll have to see if Dolan’s big gambles will pay dividends or backfire on him and his respective organizations.
