Bill Simmons: Nothing has altered the NBA like Mike D'Antoni

[JGKoblenz]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3797805

Not much love for Nash and the D'Antoni years from the Sports Guy.

 

[slinslin]

Some truth to it and a lot of crap like

Or Amaré Stoudemire? (Is he even an All-Star anymore?)

Geez..

 

[JGKoblenz]

The thing is there were a good amount of high pace teams in the nba before D'Antoni, so I am not sure what is Simmons' point here. Don Nelson and Paul Westhead come to mind.

 

[LavaLamp2]

I think the best teams should be able to play both defense-oriented, half-court basketball and SSOL. Not only that, they should be able to recognize when each style is appropriate in a given situation and switch between the two styles quickly as the situation calls for it.

 

[Skumbag]

I think the best teams should be able to play both defense-oriented, half-court basketball and SSOL. Not only that, they should be able to recognize when each style is appropriate in a given situation and switch between the two styles quickly as the situation calls for it.

what is this utopia you speak of?

 

[JGKoblenz]

what is this utopia you speak of?

I think Phil Jackson's teams usually has a nice combo of offense and defense, of course they don't come close to be a run and gun team. I am sure they would fail to use any type o SSOL system.

 

[Cheesebeef]

what is this utopia you speak of?

the 2005/7 Spurs come to mind. That team could run with us and outscore us or muck the game up and out defense us.

 

[JGKoblenz]

the 2005/7 Spurs come to mind. That team could run with us and outscore us or muck the game up and out defense us.

That was just against the Suns.

 

[nowagimp]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3797805

Not much love for Nash and the D'Antoni years from the Sports Guy.

How could simmons have missed the changes caused by David Stern? Clearly he has a memory problem, perhaps even dementia for that omission.

 

[nowagimp]

the 2005/7 Spurs come to mind. That team could run with us and outscore us or muck the game up and out defense us.

Ahhh, the Tim Duncan Spurs. Imagine that, a big man who stuffs the pick and roll on defense and prevents pesky guards from finishing inside. Suns fans can only dream ...

 

[Gaddabout]

Keep in mind Simmons is writing about a NY coach. Any column by a Boston guy about a NY coach/player/team should ALWAYS come with an asterisk.

 

[nowagimp]

Keep in mind Simmons is writing about a NY coach. Any column by a Boston guy about a NY coach/player/team should ALWAYS come with an asterisk.

Yup, a celtic homer that fails to recognize that havlicek, KC Jones, sam jones would not have been all stars except for Bill Russel. And cousy was what, a 35% FG shooter? huh? How can he be one of the greatest? 35% FGs against loose defense, go figure.

 

[cly2tw]

That was just against the Suns.

Outrunning the most-running team is no small feat by any standard! Spurs in 2005 could beat you at your preferred style. And they beat us by out-fastbreaking us.

 

[nowagimp]

Outrunning the most-running team is no small feat by any standard! Spurs in 2005 could beat you at your preferred style. And they beat us by out-fastbreaking us.

Actually, when your opponent has 35 year old vets(Jim Jackson) with knee injury histories coming off the bench, and then starting at the '2' when your starting '2' goes down, its actually quite simple. You run em till they tire and then run them some more. No running team has ever survived in the playoffs, no not even the showtime lakers, with a short bench after a starter goes out. The first part of running is getting the rebound, and the spurs just kicked the suns arse on that one, while the suns struggles to even get a defensive rebound to run with.

 

[Bufalay]

When the Suns got Shaq (30 games) Nash averaged 15.5 ppg and 9.6 apg.

 

[mojorizen7]

I think the best teams should be able to play both defense-oriented, half-court basketball and SSOL. Not only that, they should be able to recognize when each style is appropriate in a given situation and switch between the two styles quickly as the situation calls for it.

S.A. STERNS
When TD sat Parker/Ginobli would take over & run. It was a simple plan & everyone bought into it.

 

[cly2tw]

Actually, when your opponent has 35 year old vets(Jim Jackson) with knee injury histories coming off the bench, and then starting at the '2' when your starting '2' goes down, its actually quite simple. You run em till they tire and then run them some more. No running team has ever survived in the playoffs, no not even the showtime lakers, with a short bench after a starter goes out. The first part of running is getting the rebound, and the spurs just kicked the suns arse on that one, while the suns struggles to even get a defensive rebound to run with.

So, the failure is in the SYSTEM. I agree with that.

For the franchise, DA's system was a dilemma of great regular season success vs no legs for postseason. Nash owes his MVPs to DA's system. No doubt about it. Despite some bias, Simmons is right in principle.

 

[nowagimp]

So, the failure is in the SYSTEM. I agree with that.

For the franchise, DA's system was a dilemma of great regular season success vs no legs for postseason. Nash owes his MVPs to DA's system. No doubt about it. Despite some bias, Simmons is right in principle.

the NBA is the easiest sport to predict success in, you make it too complicated. When you have the horses, MJ, Kobe, young shaq, tim Duncan, KG+PP you win. When you have no defensive presence in the middle or inside game, you dont win. The suns have never had a defensive presence in the middle. Now, that should be easy to comprehend.

 

[hsandhu]

And whoever had 12/30/2008 in the pool for when the first "steve nash was strictly a product of the d'antoni system" article would come out wins!

I like bill simmons, but how completely lame, unoriginal and lazy on his part. This article already wrote itself as soon as d'antoni left. Of course anyone who has been watching the suns game in and game out knows it is a bogus premise.

He's comparing nash mvp years to nash now. Wow what an observation Bill, players slow down as they get older! Compare nash now to nash second half of last year, he is the exact same player. Last time I check pringles was here last year.

 

[HooverDam]

Bill Simmons is a high function ******, I can't believe anyone would put any salt into any of his articles. He's just another in a multitude of uneducated Boston homers who somehow lucked into a column with ESPN.

 

[S_Nash]

*Yawn*

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070117


Guy changes his mind more times than a QB on the fly.

 

[gusmahler]

I normally like Simmons's basketball columns. His writing on other sports is terribly Boston-centric, but his love of basketball shows in his columns and he's usually sort of objective.

That said, this was the worst column I've ever seen by him. (Made even worse by the link earlier in this thread to the column praising the Suns.) It just seemed like he had nothing to write about, so he chose a subject and went to the extreme on it. Seriously, one can argue about Nash's decline or the acquisition of Shaq. But how can anyone deny that STAT is an all-star? 21/9 (his average for December) is certainly All-Star quality. Does any other PF have those kinds of stats?

 

[Irish]

I'm pretty sure that most writers don't see the Suns enough to understand what 'D'Antoni teams do.

1. Runs all the time
2. Shoots a lot of early threes (before the defense is set)
3. Uses Pick and Roll or Drive and Kick plays with a goal of collapsing the opposiiton and then shooking threes
4. Avoids intentional fouls to keep the game going and wear down the opponent while keeping guys in the game
5. Played a very short bench so seven guys got starter minutes.

The D'Antoni system was completely dependent on the three and had trouble against a Spurs team that guarded the three point arc while having Duncan back to guard the rim.

The problem we have in discussing the D'Antoni system is that it never got a real test since injuries proved fatal

2004-05 Joe Johnson was injured
2005-06 Amare Stoudemeire and Kurt Thomas were injured
2006-07 Raja Bell was injured
2007-08 Grant Hill was injured

Key guys left or traded: 2005 Joe Johnson left through free agency and 2006 Tim Thomas left through free agency. 2007 Kurt Thomas and James Jones traded.

It is not clear how much of D'Antoni's system was undone by D'Antoni's total failure as a GM. Nor do we know if the injuries are just a sign of bad personnel planning or just bad luck.

 

[dodie53]

what's SSOL?

 

[S_Nash]

what's SSOL?

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