Knicks-Tom Thibodeau contract extension? It would be gift-wrapped birthday present

Another birthday, another basketball game.

So goes the life of Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who celebrated his 66h birthday Wednesday night by coaching his team to a 109-94 win over the Houston Rockets at Madison Square Garden. Thibodeau has no idea how many games he’s coached over the years on his birthday, but he said before the game that there’s nothing he would rather be doing on his big day.

“Even going back to being a kid and playing, it always seemed like basketball was a part of it,” Thibodeau said.

Thibodeau didn’t get into what kind of present he would want for his birthday. The one he really deserves to get from Knicks management is a contract extension as he is by far the best coach the franchise has seen in a generation.

Thibodeau, who picked up his 500th career win Saturday, is the 13th coach to head the Knicks since Jeff Van Gundy stepped down in 2002 with a 248-172 record. All but two of those coaches — Thibodeau and Mike Woodson — had losing records with the team.

Even worse than just losing, a number of those coaches brought additional dysfunction to the team, including a coach who was involved in a public sexual harassment lawsuit, a coach who was caught liking a pornographic Twitter post and a coach who missed a team practice after getting punched by a player from another team whose estranged wife he was dating.

Sigh. It’s so much easier to have a basketball junkie for a coach, a guy who likes to celebrate his birthday by drawing up plays, scowling at officials and sparring gently with reporters. And it’s so much more fun to watch a team that has taken on his personality — a team that works hard, holds themselves accountable and is obsessed with winning every game — than it was to watch most of the last 21 years of disappointment.

Basketball coaches all like to talk about establishing a culture, but we’ve seen it actually happen under Thibodeau.

Thibodeau took over a team that had gone 38-110 over its past two seasons. He made All-Star caliber players out of Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle, neither of whom had been offered contract extensions by the teams who drafted them. He transformed Mitchell Robinson from a project to a player whose presence can alter a game. And he turned late first-round pick Immanuel Quickley into a player so beloved by Knicks fans that they just can’t get over the fact the team recently traded him.

He has held himself accountable and proved even a coach in the league for decades can change. Witness his growth over his time as a coach, going from being a defense-first coach known for his lack of offensive creativity to one whose team has the 10th best offensive rating in the league.

Changing attitudes on a losing team and getting players to believe in both themselves and you is not easy. Just ask Rockets coach Ime Udoka, who is attempting to do the same thing in Houston. Udoka, who took over a 19-win team at the end of last season, now has the Rockets playing close to .500 basketball.

“He always has an immediate impact and holds his guys accountable,” Udoka said of Thibodeau. “He coaches hard and naturally you’re going to see an increase and attention to detail and those things.

“ . . . You’ve seen with Thibs over the years whether it’s Chicago, Minnesota or here. Guys are going to play hard for him, he’s going to coach (them) hard and it’s about how you get to that next step.”

That next step has a good chance to come for the Knicks this season if they can stay healthy. Last year, Thibs seems to have found a soul mate in Brunson, who got the Knicks to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in a decade. Right now, they are playing at a level where it’s not ridiculous to think that they could challenge Philadelphia for the third seed in the East.

Thibodeau’s contract runs through the 2024-25 season and extending that now would show a long-term commitment to both the team and the program. It would also show the kind of stability that has long been absent from this franchise.

It’s the present that Thibodeau deserves. But even if he doesn’t, you can bet he will be spending a lot more birthdays around basketball somewhere.

By Barbara Barker

barbara.barker@newsday.commeanbarb

Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.