Obi Toppin’s return means Tom Thibodeau will eventually shake up his 9-man rotation
Obi Toppin’s recovery was sooner than expected. Now Tom Thibodeau is faced with some decisions about his rotation, with either Jericho Sims or the struggling Isaiah Hartenstein projecting as the odd-man out.
Toppin was a surprise addition to the active list for Wednesday night’s game against the Spurs. The former lottery pick recovered from a fractured bone in his leg sustained about a month prior, and even Thibodeau seemed surprised by the update.
“He just got cleared, so he’ll be situational for a while,” the coach said. “We’ve got to ramp him up, let him get through some practices. He’s done a great job with his rehab, actually got back sooner — as soon as he possibly could get back. So that was an encouraging sign. Now we’ve just got to let him get some contact and that sort of thing.”
Barring injuries or foul trouble, Toppin was expected to stay on the bench for Wednesday’s game. The plan was to get him through 5 on 5s in practice before thrusting him into games. It’s unclear how long that will take.
“You’re not taking contact [when going through rehab], and it’s different when you add the contact piece of it,” Thibodeau said. “That cardio is a lot different, and even in practice, it doesn’t replicate the intensity of a game. So we know we have to ramp him up.”
The Knicks went 8-5 while Toppin was injured. Most relevant to his absence was the brilliant play from Julius Randle, who took on more minutes and surged to his best month in over a year. Thibodeau is keen on his nine-man rotation and declared Toppin “is gonna play” after his ramp-up period, meaning it’s likely one of the backup frontcourt players — Sims or Hartenstein — loses his spot.
Hartenstein has been a disappointment since signing his two-year, $16 million deal in the summer, averaging just 5.4 points in a career-high 19.4 minutes. He doesn’t provide the rebounding or rim-protecting value as the other two centers, Sims and Mitchell Robinson.
“The team has to be put first. Everyone has to sacrifice for the team,” Thibodeau said. “And for some guys, it’s starting; some guys, it’s shots; some guys, they may not be in the rotation. But things can change very quickly. And right now, we have people, we have a nine-man rotation, and we could have an injury; we could have foul trouble; we could have illness. It has to be fluid. But the most important thing is the team playing well, so if the team is playing well, we can’t sacrifice that.”
Still, Toppin’s return doesn’t mean heavy minutes. He was averaging just 17.1 minutes per game before the injury, and that number may go down because Randle has been playing at an All-Star level while averaging over 37 minutes in December.
“I love the way he’s playing,” Thibodeau said. “I think just his all-around game — and I think he’s played at such a high level and he’s in such a good rhythm. I think it’s the versatility of his game. He’s doing it a lot of different ways. I think when he’s playing in space and he’s playing on the move, he’s very difficult to guard.”
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