What got you here won’t get you there

A friend who is a lifelong New York Knicks fan has been eagerly following the New York Knicks these playoffs. Watching them sweep the 76ers and cruise back into the Eastern Conference Finals got me thinking. Last year, the Knicks also made the Eastern Conference Finals — their deepest run in years. They lost to the Indiana Pacers. Then they fired their coach. Their coach, Tom Thibodeau, had gotten them further than they’d been in a long time. Why change it? But the pattern keeps showing up. The Chicago Bulls fired Doug Collins in 1989 after he’d taken them to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 15 years. They replaced him with his own assistant, Phil Jackson. Phil Jackson instituted the “triangle offense”, a significant departure from the way they played. Six championships followed. Similarly, the Golden State Warriors fired Mark Jackson in 2014 after back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time in decades. They hired Steve Kerr, who had never coached before and…