You have been fired or laid off, and your replacement immediately takes the company to unprecedented heights while receiving the universal praise reserved for the geniuses of your craft.Are you happy for that person or that employer?Human nature offers the obvious answer. If I were fired or laid off one year and my replacement won a Pulitzer Prize the next, I would not be throwing a ticker-tape parade for that person. (Columnist’s note: I’m thrilled I wasn’t Pablo Torre’s predecessor.)Mike Brown just won his Pulitzer with the NBA champion New York Knicks, and on Thursday, he is getting his ticker-tape parade. You would think Tom Thibodeau has to feel a certain kind of way about this, since he’s still wondering why his five seasons of meritorious service building a wretched Knicks team into a contender didn’t earn him another shot.On top of that, Thibodeau was the son of a Connecticut purchasing agent who adored the Knicks, especially the two championship teams from the Red Holzman era. Thibs savored every second of his time working for Jeff Van Gundy in Madison Square Garden in the 1990s. Later, as a Boston Celtics assistant, he was overwhelmed when coaching with Willis Reed, a hero to two generations of Thibodeaus, during the league’s All-Star weekend rookie-sophomore game.The Knicks were always Thibodeau’s dream job. “He would crawl to Madison Square Garden,” a friend of his said years ago.Thibodeau was said to be heartbroken when owner James Dolan and team president Leon Rose, his former agent, fired him after he led the Knicks to their first Eastern Conference finals appearance in a quarter-century. Without Thibs and his long-standing professional and personal relationship with Rick Brunson, Jalen Brunson might not even be on this team.But Dolan and Rose wanted a coach who collaborated more with a front office that chafed at Thibodeau’s perceived unwillingness to act on their suggestions, and perceived inflexibility when it came to reducing the starters’ minutes and developing the bench. They swung and missed on several accomplished and employed candidates before deciding the unemployed Brown was their man.Replacing Thibodeau with a coach who had been fired four times was a pretty bold roll of the dice. It didn’t come up snake eyes.Three Takeaways from the Knicks' first championship in 53 yearsJay KingBrown hit his share of potholes during the regular season, most notably with Karl-Anthony Towns. But his record-breaking postseason, punctuated by 15 victories in the last 16 games and a quick NBA Finals conquest of the San Antonio Spurs, made him the coach of arguably the greatest Knicks team ever and a permanent part of New York lore. Brown and Holzman. Holzman and Brown. The only two Knicks coaches to ever get this franchise across the line.“Mike was invaluable to this run,” Josh Hart said.“We’re so grateful, so thankful to have him at the top. … He’s the reason why we’re here, and we’ve got love for him. That’s a bond that we are always going to have.”This quote couldn’t have been easy for Thibodeau to read, just as Dolan’s newly released video — a pre-playoff pep talk for the team — couldn’t have been easy to see and hear.The owner acknowledged in his speech that the Thibs firing “shocked the world” and that if the Knicks failed in the postseason, the decision-makers would be second-guessed forever. Dolan told the players the change was made because “Leon and I believe that you, the team and the rest of the organization needed to be heard more, needed to work together more, not just led or dictated to. And coach Thibs was a great coach, brilliant, etcetera, but we thought you needed a coach that would pull you together, that would have you play as a team.”At least Dolan called him brilliant.