Tom Thibodeau just got a salient reminder from NBA's erratic coaching landscape

It is a brutal business. It has always been a brutal business. Red Holzman won 613 games with the Knicks. He won two titles here. And yet there came a time after back-to-back losing seasons in 1976 and ’77 when he was nudged upstairs, to the front office, and Willis Reed was given the job without a minute of prior coaching experience.

Red was too dignified to say anything while his old captain was on the bench, but when he was asked to return less than two seasons later, he did have a few wry observations about the business he had chosen.

“I’m not any smarter a coach today than I was yesterday,” Holzman said. “And I don’t think I got dumber in my final few years than I was when we had winning records.”

Michael Malone apparently got a lot dumber Tuesday than he’d been in the almost nine years he’d previously spent coaching the Nuggets, including to an NBA title two years ago. It was the same way that Taylor Jenkins got a lot dumber last week in Memphis, when he was canned after the better part of six years in which he’d helped lead the Grizzlies to new heights and two 50-plus win seasons, on the verge of a third.