Tom Thibodeau and the minutes-heavy Knicks are at it again - ESPN

BACK IN 2017, coming off a frustrating season in which his young Minnesota Timberwolves set a modern NBA record by blowing 22 double-digit leads, then-Wolves coach and team president Tom Thibodeau was crystal clear in diagnosing the issue.

«I went through [film of] those games, and it kept coming back to toughness,» Thibodeau said during that year's media day. «A lot of what we were doing wasn't tough enough. And this summer we wanted to change that.»

One of the quickest ways to increase the team's toughness, Thibodeau suggested, was to infuse more of it into the roster. So despite a slew of teams leaning into the league's load-management strategy to help keep their stars fresh for the postseason, the Wolves did the opposite. They cornered the market on a particular type of player.

«Last year, we had three of the 17 guys in the league who played in all 82 games. And we just added two more, Jamal [Crawford] and Jeff Teague, who played in all 82. So now we have five of the 17,» Thibodeau said, clearly proud of what the signings represented. «That's important.»

Those pickups didn't even include the additions of Jimmy Butler and Taj Gibson, rugged players who had appeared in all 82 games under Thibodeau once previously during their time with the Chicago Bulls.

Eight years later, with the Knicks, Thibodeau's strategy remains. So has the debate that has followed the 67-year-old throughout his career.

Looking at this season, no team has played its bench less frequently or gotten less scoring production from its bench than the Knicks. And it's been almost 40 years, dating back to the 1986-87 Boston Celtics, since a team that led the NBA in starters' minutes reached the NBA Finals, according to ESPN Research.

The two-time Coach