Let’s be fair
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- May
- 11
I realize he wasn’t the first name on a lot of lists for obvious reasons, but I cannot believe some of the comments about Mike D’Antoni on the blogs.
How can anybody argue he’s not a winner?
Check the standings. I believe D’Antoni averaged 58 wins in Phoenix over the last four seasons. Lenny Wilkens, Herb Williams, Larry Brown and Isiah Thomas averaged 28 wins here over the last four seasons. There was a talent differential, but it’s hard to argue with that kind of success.
It seems our standards might be unduly inflated.
To quote a former Knicks coach, you haven’t won a championship here since 1973.
A 26-25 postseason record with the Suns is undoubtedly the hangup, but it’s not realistic to come down on D’Antoni because he’s never made it past the Western Conference finals. It’s been mentioned here before, but I’ll bring it up again. Michael Jordan was a roadblock Patrick Ewing never got around.
Did that issue make Pat Riley or Jeff Van Gundy any less of a coach?
Tim Duncan has similarly made a habit of holding back Phoenix, and Robert Horry should probably get a big assist.
I’m not saying this was the best hire. There are several very important questions that need to be answered in the coming days and months. I’m guessing a number of high-profile roster moves will follow. D’Antoni will probably have to adjust his style of play in the mean time.
And as many of you have noticed, we have a 13-year-old who thinks racist comments are funny. I apologize for his behavior. We are working to put an end to such nonsense, so hang in there.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 8:42 pm by Mike Dougherty.
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your right mike but we all know defense wins championships the spurs play DEFENSE its not just about Tim Duncan.
Do the Spurs win because of their team defense, or because of Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili ? Jackson’s Lakers – Kobe and Shaq, or team defense ?
No one is saying defense isn’t important, but without the big-time players, you can play great team defense and not win a thing (case in point – Van Gundy’s Knicks, this year’s Rockets).
I can’t believe all the criticism by writers like Vecsey, Lawrence, and Isola because the Knick roster doesn’t fit D’Antoni’s system. By the time the Knicks are a legitimate team in the Eastern Conference again, players such as Marbury and Randolph will be long gone. So why choose a coach who fits the current roster when that roster is one you cannot possibly win with ? Makes no sense. Credit Walsh for his vision.
I wouldn’t have had a problem with Jackson, he was my preferred choice before D’Antoni became available. However, how do all these people connect Mark Jackson with tough defense ? All I read and hear is how Jackson would preach defense if the Knicks made him coach – what is this based on ? He was a very poor defensive player himself, and has no coaching resume for us to draw upon. To assume he’s going to be a tough, defensive-minded coach just because he has the guts to rip players like Mike Bibby during ABC broadcasts is flimsy, at best.
Finally, for the assertion that D’Antoni is “awful” defensively – look at a key statistic – defensive efficiency. It’s measured by points per 100 possessions. This statistic adjusts for pace, as not every NBA team plays the same way. Phoenix, for example, gives their opponents more possessions to work with because of their “7 seconds or less” offense. An an perusal of this static shows Phoenix is average defensively, but much better than the Knicks. Last season they were 17th, and the Knicks were 29th. Here’s how it breaks down since D’Antoni’s first full season:
Phoenix –
2004-05: Offense (1st), Defense (17th)
2005-06: Offense (2nd), Defense (16th)
2006-07: Offense (1st), Defense (13th)
2007-08: Offense (2nd), Defense (16th)
Defensively, the Knicks ranked 25th, 26th, 25th, and 29th those same seasons. So that’s why you can’t use just the points per game stat when assessing defense. If the Knicks played Phoenix-level defense under D’Antoni, it would still be a considerable improvement.
The Jordan and Ewing argument is faulty. Who got by Jordan when he started winning championships? The answer is NOBODY. How can anybody hold that against a single player from that era?
Several teams, on the other hand, have gotten past the Spurs since they started winning championships. Recently, the Lakers (on their last legs), the Mavs and this season a playoff neophyte team in the Hornets, have a chance to beat them.
Even with home court advantage in 2 of the 3 series against the Spurs, the Suns couldn’t come close. And the Suns also lost to the Mavs in the playoffs under D’Antoni so it wasn’t only the Spurs that the Suns couldn’t get past.
D’Antoni’s “system” is a great way to mask flaws, like inability to play defense and execute in the half court offense in crunch time during the playoffs. But it’ll win some games against the weaker teams to make the record look nice and it’ll sell tickets. That’s all Dolan and the Knicks care about. It’s not about winning championships anymore.
The suns had Steve Nash he is not a big time player?
I never said Nash wasn’t a big-time player. My point was this notion that all you need to do in order to win is get a coach who emphasizes defense above all else is simply wrong. D’Antoni needs to find a big time player here with the Knicks. And had he gotten the job, Jackson would have had to do the same thing. This theory purported by many that Jackson was going to come in, yell and scream and “whip these players into shape”, and the Knicks would be “back”, is ludicrous.
I’m sure you guys like Jeff Van Gundy. Made the playoffs in 9 of his 11 seasons as coach. Playoffs ? 44-44. D’Antoni has a better winning % in the playoffs despite all four of his playoff appearances coming in the western conference. Yet his system is a poor fit in the playoffs and Van Gundy plays a “playoff style”.
I disagree with the contention that it was the style which failed the Suns in the playoffs. Ultimately, it’s the players. Was it D’Antoni’s system which caused Amare Stoudemire to step onto the court at the end of Game 4 last year ? Because many believe him walking onto the court ultimately cost the Suns a championship. They lost Game 5 by 3 points without Stoudemire and Diaw. They win that series and all that would have stood in their way would have been the Jazz and Cavs.
islesfan – Again, Phoenix 13th in the NBA in FG%-against last year. Knicks ? 28th. Keep looking at the stats which don’t come close to telling the full story because they just so happen to help your argument. Anyone who seriously argues the Knicks were a better defensive team than the Suns last season is lost.
You said Dolan and Walsh don’t care about winning a title…and the evidence of this is hiring a coach who averaged 58 wins over his 4 full seasons in Phoenix instead of a TV analyst with no coaching experience ? Great logic.
You know, if the knicks, against the odds, get Derrick Rose I’m sure some observers will wonder about frozen envelopes. If you knew you were gonna get D. Rose who better as a coach then D’anatoni to develop him. Now that I think about it, the Knicks are likely to get a PG (Bayless, Mayo—- and yes he could play point) or D Rose. Kinda interesting.
D’Antoni adapted to the Suns roster. It’s not like they were a regular team that he forced to play smaller and super-fast. They’re a team of athletes, and they had no center, so he used them the right way. There’s no reason to think D’Antoni won’t adapt to the Knicks roster and what they have
Granted Coach D has had great regular season success and fair post season success. I feel his success is predicated on his players more than his coaching ability. I can recall numerous in game situations in the post season where I was wondering “what the heck is he thinking?” of course replace the heck with another four letter word.
I thought he personally should have been fired after his debacle this year against San Antonio. He made so many basic coaching errors it was like watching a Naked Gun movie. Now, he’s not alone this year. Alot of coaches have been exposed for not being prepared for games in these playoffs. Doc Rivers, Avery Johnson are two others that have done absolutely horrible jobs at the reign. Doc is lucky enough that his players talents overcome his lack of playoff coaching ability.
You made a point about Ewing and NY not getting past Chicago and did that make JVG or Riley less of a coach? Nope, only because based on talent we shouldnt have even competed against those Bulls teams in the 90’s. That was the complete opposite of what Mike D displayed in the post season. We had teams that had playoff success despite their players inabiltities. Not the opposite.
I want it to work with Mike D obviously because I have a vested interest in it working because I’m as big as a Knick fan as there is. I’m just not convinced he is part of the story book ending I’ve been dreaming of for the last 33 years of my existence.
Which coach’s success is predicated more on his coaching ability than his players ? It’s a players league. Phil Jackson won big…with Jordan, Pippen, Kobe, Shaq. If you don’t have the players, you won’t win. That’s where Jackson gets an unfair advantage – he never coached before, so no one has the opportunity to knock his body of work. (as there’s none to knock)
In New York coaching or hiring the best coach is not the remedy to the Knicks misery. The team had hired almost every talented coach available but to no avail. The area to address is how the coach and his players work in a noisy and intrusive environment where everybody is expert in basketball. This disruptive and destracting “experts” would only root for its team all through the end, the Knicks could have not been in this drought. The fans(mobs) are their in the Garden not to cheer the team but to shame them, unlike NBA fans in other arenas. Ask what Ewing, Starks, Oakley, Camby, Houston, Spreewell, Jacksom got from the fans. If coaches and players have their success in other teams to catapult them to Hall of Fame, in New York they have their pit where its heads can be buried.
What if…and i’m just spitballing here…but what if the team as a whole isn’t quite as bad as we all think. Stay with me… What if Isiah was just SOOOO horrible, the knicks are actually pretty mediocre/o.k. next season? Wouldn’t that just be awesome? Remember when New Jersey wasn’t playing well for Byron Scott a few years back, then Lawrence Frank took over and they won like 17 of the next 20 games (or something like that)? What if the fresh faces of Walsh and D’antoni just creates some magical turnaround? That would be awesome. Okay, i’m done dreaming.
Isaiah was awful…the knicks this season, if not for Isaiah’s inability and Stephon’s conceit in November, this team would have won ~39 games. 2 seasons ago, when injuries took out Jamal Crawford, David Lee, Quentin Richardson, and eventually Stephon Marbury, the Knicks would have won at least 5 more games, probably more. I seem to remember that other than Q’s back, all three of those injuries were stress fractures in the ankle or lower leg, so they were the type of thing that had been coming for awhile, because of playing too many minutes or too hard or whatever, so that season was bound to be bad.