Anyone feel bad for Mike D'Antoni?

[Phrazbit]

I dont have a problem with Mike for being an offensive coach, we had offensive players. But to think he was the key to the Suns success is nuts. For the majority of Mike's tenure here he had 3 or 4 all-star caliber players in his starting line-up.

SSOL was certainly fun to watch, but its hard to imagine those rosters not being fun no matter who coached them, and also not having a similar amount of success. Look no farther than Gentry the 2010 team. Or at Mike's career without Nash.

 

[JustWinBaby]

I dont have a problem with Mike for being an offensive coach, we had offensive players. But to think he was the key to the Suns success is nuts. For the majority of Mike's tenure here he had 3 or 4 all-star caliber players in his starting line-up.

SSOL was certainly fun to watch, but its hard to imagine those rosters not being fun no matter who coached them, and also not having a similar amount of success. Look no farther than Gentry the 2010 team. Or at Mike's career without Nash.

I just think it is unfair to totally evaluate Mike on not winning a Championship and his results thus far in New York.

1. We never had a good defensive presence in the Paint (generally regarded as the most important Championhip requirement) and Nash was generally run down due to no back up. These issues were never adressed by management. Those 2 issues had as much or more to do with us not winning a championship during Mike's tenure than anything else, JMO.

2. Mike has only had a legit PG in New York for half a season. They were not great but pretty damn good with Felton at the controls. I serriously doubt Phil Jackson would do any better with the current Knicks roster. It is and has been a well documented mess.

I got it. We disagree - so be it.

 

[Covert Rain]

Sorry Daren, but I actually agree with you Steve. I think the majority of Suns fans feel the way you do about the product on the court....and IMO thats a big part of the problem in terms of the culture thats been present here for so many years.
Its traditionally been a product of entertainment first....and substance second.

0-43.........but being one of the most successful regular season franchises in the history of the league says alot to me having watched this team since the mid 80's. I think the majority of the fanbase is proud of an entertaining product on the court vs a culture that says we're going to do whatever it takes to bring a championship to this town.The championship blueprint over the last 30 yrs or so has been everything but what the Suns have tried to put on the court for the most part.
I'm sure you disagree and thats fine.

Actually I was talking about most die hard fans. I know many and I know we all feel the same. When you say "most fans" above I think you are including all the casual fans. You know as well as I do that the majority of fans that fill the arena are bandwagon and disappear when the team sucks. I am talking about the ones that were going to games before the Barkley years and showing up. Not the ones that jump on the bandwagon because of an exciting player being added to the roster and now want to support the team.

In that regard I don't disagree with what your saying.

 

[Phrazbit]

I just think it is unfair to totally evaluate Mike on not winning a Championship and his results thus far in New York.

1. We never had a good defensive presence in the Paint (generally regarded as the most important Championhip requirement) and Nash was generally run down due to no back up. These issues were never adressed by management. Those 2 issues had as much or more to do with us not winning a championship during Mike's tenure than anything else, JMO.

2. Mike has only had a legit PG in New York for half a season. They were not great but pretty damn good with Felton at the controls. I serriously doubt Phil Jackson would do any better with the current Knicks roster. It is and has been a well documented mess.

I got it. We disagree - so be it.

They might never have been addressed WELL by management, but there were certainly efforts made to address the backup point guard. And, as we have discussed, a lot of the failures to find a backup PG falls on D'Antoni.

And, in my opinion, it didnt matter what they did to address backup PG. Mike D'Antoni seems to totally rely on Steve Nash for his system to work at a high level, if Nash is healthy Mike was going to play him huge minutes no matter who the backup was, and if Nash wasnt healthy (or not on the team IE Mike's time in NY and Denver) then D'Antoni's teams were going to fail.

He might prove me wrong if he survives long enough to see what Baron Davis' corpse has to offer the Knicks, but I doubt it will have a substantial impact.

 

[mojorizen7]

Actually I was talking about most die hard fans. I know many and I know we all feel the same. When you say "most fans" above I think you are including all the casual fans. You know as well as I do that the majority of fans that fill the arena are bandwagon and disappear when the team sucks. I am talking about the ones that were going to games before the Barkley years and showing up. Not the ones that jump on the bandwagon because of an exciting player being added to the roster and now want to support the team.

In that regard I don't disagree with what your saying.

There is that distinction for sure.

 

[JustWinBaby]

They might never have been addressed WELL by management, but there were certainly efforts made to address the backup point guard. And, as we have discussed, a lot of the failures to find a backup PG falls on D'Antoni.

And, in my opinion, it didnt matter what they did to address backup PG. Mike D'Antoni seems to totally rely on Steve Nash for his system to work at a high level, if Nash is healthy Mike was going to play him huge minutes no matter who the backup was, and if Nash wasnt healthy (or not on the team IE Mike's time in NY and Denver) then D'Antoni's teams were going to fail.

He might prove me wrong if he survives long enough to see what Baron Davis' corpse has to offer the Knicks, but I doubt it will have a substantial impact.

You always seem to give management/Sarver a break in any conversation about Coach D. Somehow the poor moves are blamed on D'Antoni and the good moves, having 4 All Stars on the roste,r were because management did a stellar job of handing him players. You can't have it both ways. Besides, Sarver was handed those players by Colangelo. If it were up to Bob and Bob alone we may not have signed Nash. Colangelo held his hand on that one as well.

No one has come up with those gems that Coach D did not develop. Who are they?

The only one that has been named is KT, he played but not enough. When we needed him most management dumped him.

Hell he tried to play Pat Burke hoping he could be a big that would help.

He almost made a player out of Steven Hunter. When the price went up, management let him go.

Everyones favorite Strawberry. He just was not as good as everyone thought. The rest of the league proved that Mike was right. He never received consistent minutes from any other team and is out of the league.

The guys he played are all still in the league. The ones he didn't play are out of the league.

It is mighty hard to convince me that he did a poor job in developoing players when given those statistics. It is much easier to convince me that he was not given very good players other than the first 7 or 8.

 

[Phrazbit]

You always seem to give management/Sarver a break in any conversation about Coach D. Somehow the poor moves are blamed on D'Antoni and the good moves, having 4 All Stars on the roste,r were because management did a stellar job of handing him players. You can't have it both ways. Besides, Sarver was handed those players by Colangelo. If it were up to Bob and Bob alone we may not have signed Nash. Colangelo held his hand on that one as well.

In any conversation? I dont recall ever having a discussion besides this one, with you, on the subject. I've only been posting here since october.

And I am not saying all the poor moves are on D'Antoni, Ive pointed out several moves in this very thread that he did not trigger that I didnt like (Kurt Thomas, Q-Rich). If you want to create a seperate topic detailing every poor roster move this franchise has made since Sarver bought the team and who the blame should fall on then I would be up for that debate. But the specific failures of Banks, who was supposed to be the backup point guard and was hand picked by Mike, is Mike's fault, and the failurs of the backup PG during that time was the subject at hand. So when he personally selects a player, gives him a 5 year deal and makes no effort at all to develop or integrate him into the line up then yes, I will absolutely blame Mike for that.

And the quoted post was about Steve Nash and his usage. My point was; Mike has yet to prove in 9 years as an NBA coach that he can have any success without Nash. So, it does not matter who the backup was, Mike plays Nash huge minutes because he needs Nash to play huge minutes for Mike's system to function.

Unless the front office was supposed to clone Nash then I cannot blame them for not having a backup that Mike would have been able to rely upon.