Place in the sun
Mike D'Antoni has been all over the map; in Phoenix, he's a shining example of what a coach should be
By Lynn DeBruin, Rocky Mountain News
March 12, 2005
PHOENIX - For a minute, Mike D'Antoni thought he was back in Italy.
But his memories weren't stoked by any four-hour dinners or five-hour bus rides through the Italian countryside.
What brought the memories flooding back were the sweet sounds of Motown.
It was a January trip, the Phoenix Suns' longest this season, and D'Antoni's players were singing along with each other as they sat in the back of the bus.
As D'Antoni listened from the front, the camaraderie and closeness made him think of his years spent overseas as a player and coach at Milano and Treviso.
He laughed, and smiled with satisfaction.
"It's hard in this day and age, what with cell phones and iPods and everything else that interferes with relationships, but these guys seem to genuinely like each other and are working toward a common goal," D'Antoni said. "That makes it fun."
Winning certainly helps, and for a team that won only 29 games in 2003-04, the resurgent Suns (46-14) are the feel-good story of the NBA this season.
D'Antoni is a close second.
Only 51/2 years after being fired by the Denver Nuggets, he is in the running for NBA Coach of the Year honors.
On Sunday, Denver fans will get another look at the man once deemed unworthy to lead the Nuggets when D'Antoni brings his up-tempo style to the Pepsi Center (7 p.m., Altitude).
"Mike has been recognized internationally as a great basketball mind, and I think people in the States now realize it, too," Suns general manager Bryan Colangelo said.
In the late 1990s, that was not the case.
In 1997, the Nuggets hired the former Italian League standout as player personnel director, then promoted him to coach for the 1998-1999 season.
But the team went only 14-36 in a lockout-shortened season. When the Nuggets were sold and new ownership gave Dan Issel approval to run the basketball operation and become coach, D'Antoni got the boot in September 1999.
At the time, D'Antoni admitted he was blindsided by Issel's move. But he blamed himself for being naive about the politics of the situation and vowed he would not be again.
And though upset then, particularly at the timing of his pink slip, today he insists there is no lingering bitterness.
"You're human, and it does take a while (to get over it)," D'Antoni said. "But I've been in basketball about 40 years and if you add up all the bad things that happen to you and hold resentment, you'd be a ticked-off person. You've got to let it go or it will eat you up."
Passion to compete
That is not to say the competitive fire does not burn intensely in the mild-mannered D'Antoni.
His father was a legendary high school basketball coach in West Virginia and Ohio, and on his mom's side his roots extend to the Hatfields and McCoys (a cousin on his mother's side was a Hatfield).
Growing up in the tiny coal-mining town of Mullens, W.Va., only fueled his competitive spirit.
"Ping-Pong, Monopoly, it didn't matter, we always competed and always enjoyed the competition," said brother Dan, a stellar prep coach in South Carolina for nearly 30 years.
In the house, they played football on their knees and sock basketball in their rooms.
When their mother was not scolding them for roughhousing around the furniture, she was waiting for them at the table for a game of gin rummy, bridge or Risk.
"You lose a quarter to her, it was like blood," Dan said. "You didn't play Monopoly just to keep score. They'd be on the refrigerator for everyone to see.
"We knew who won the most Risk games that year, who had the highest score on the pinball machine in the basement. We had records for everything. That was the type of life we lived."
That Mike took losing hard was evident in a story Dan tells about his younger brother pounding his head on the wall of his room one day.
Their mother quickly stopped that with a bucket of cold water.
"If you can't take it any better than that, just quit," she chided.
"He obviously rebounded," said Dan, four years older than Mike.
The right move
D'Antoni went on to play basketball at Marshall, graduating as the school's career assists leader and dreaming of a career in the NBA.
But after struggling to make it with Kansas City-Omaha and being cut by San Antonio, D'Antoni took a different route to fame - via Italy.
His last name (his father's side of the family immigrated from Italy), good looks and impressive ball-handling skills made him an instant hit abroad.
Though the Chicago Bulls had all but guaranteed D'Antoni a roster spot two years later, he found himself at a crossroad.
If he had left Europe to play in even one game in the NBA, the rules back then would have barred him from playing again in Italy.
When a leg injury left D'Antoni hobbled and Milano offered him more money to return, he packed his bags and caught the last flight out of Chicago.
D'Antoni's stay in Italy would span 18 years, with him becoming Olympia's career leading scorer. He guided it to five league championships, then later added two titles as coach of Treviso.
"I could do no wrong," D'Antoni said of his time in Italy.
He was so popular, fans voted him the greatest point guard in Italian League history.
Dan D'Antoni got an opportunity to see his brother's popularity firsthand when they walked into a women's title game near Milan.
Thousands of opposing fans that had been chanting back and forth in the packed arena suddenly turned their attention to D'Antoni.
The Milan fans began chanting his name in wild admiration, while the visiting fans chanted it with a few curse words attached.
"They yelled for a good 15 minutes," Dan said.
Afterward, though, even the ones yelling his name derisively got in line for his autograph.
Bright future
Though there are those who believe D'Antoni would have found success playing in the NBA, he has no regrets.
"I don't know how long I would have played and probably would have been out of work and doing something else with my life," said D'Antoni, who has
dual citizenship, speaks Italian fluently and has co-authored two books. "You make decisions in life for certain reasons, and some of the reasons you really don't know. You've just got to go with the feeling you have, and it worked out for me."
The same might be said about his move to Phoenix.
Though his first season hardly was one to remember (he took over last year after 21 games and the Suns finished 29-53), D'Antoni and management had a plan.
They had a solid foundation with Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion and Joe Johnson, then added two key pieces to the puzzle with the off-season acquisitions of Quentin Richardson and Steve Nash.
Though some believe it took courage to go with the small-ball lineup, D'Antoni said it was a no-brainer with Nash on board.
Today, the offense he runs is not that much different from the one he used in his first coaching job at Milan.
It has bred unselfishness and the cohesiveness that was evident in the Motown sing-along.
"It's rare in this league when you get a group of guys like that," said Jimmy Jackson, an NBA veteran added to the roster in January. "You've got to try to keep that going."
That's where D'Antoni comes in.
"He just has a way about him," said New Jersey Nets president Rod Thorn, who grew up about 30 miles from D'Antoni's hometown and coached him for St. Louis of the American Basketball Association. "When you're around him, you don't feel uptight. He's got a way about him that relaxes people."
Dan D'Antoni said his brother truly believes in people and trusts them. Thorn said there's no pretense.
"What you see is what you get. He's just a good human being," Thorn said. "I'm very, very happy at his success."
The D'Antoni file
• Age: 53
• Personal: Married to Laurel, whom he met in Milan, Italy. They have one son, Michael, 8.
• Worked: As an analyst for NBA.com after the 1998-99 regular season.
• Quote: "He was like Michael Jordan without the athleticism." - Brother Dan D'Antoni, on Mike's style as a player.
• Notable: Italians reportedly nicknamed him Arsenio Lupin after a European film about an elegant man who turned cat burglar at night.
• In Italy: Won five league championships in 13 seasons as a Milan player and was two-time Italian League Coach of the Year.
• D'Antoni, on whether Phoenix's up-tempo style will be successful in the playoffs: "We have to dispel (the criticism) at each level. We don't know 100 percent, but we do think the style works. It's silly to think that the Boston Celtics of old or the Denver Nuggets, when they were running, or the Lakers, when they were running, couldn't win a championship. A lot of them did. But a lot of championships are won by making shots and getting some lucky bounces, and that will have to happen for us."
A change of seasons
• The Phoenix Suns are on pace to go 63-19 this season. That would be a 34-game improvement from last season, when they went 29-53. A look at the biggest turnarounds from one season to the next in NBA history:
Team Year W L Pct Year W L Pct Difference
1. San Antonio Spurs 1996-97 20 62 .244 1997-98 56 26 .683 +36
2. San Antonio Spurs 1988-89 21 61 .256 1989-90 56 26 .683 +35
3. Boston Celtics 1978-79 29 53 .354 1979-80 61 21 .744 +32
4. Milwaukee Bucks 1968-69 27 55 .329 1969-70 56 26 .683 +29
5. Phoenix Suns 1987-88 28 54 .341 1988-89 55 27 .671 +27
6t New Jersey Nets 2000-01 26 56 .317 2001-02 52 30 .634 +26
Denver Nuggets 2002-03 17 65 .207 2003-04 43 39 .524 +26
8. Cleveland Cavaliers 1990-91 33 49 .402 1991-92 57 25 .695 +24
9t Phoenix Suns 1968-69 16 66 .195 1969-70 39 43 .476 +23
Golden St. Warriors 1987-88 20 62 .244 1988-89 43 39 .524 +23
------------
Mike D'Antoni has been all over the map; in Phoenix, he's a shining example of what a coach should be
By Lynn DeBruin, Rocky Mountain News
March 12, 2005
PHOENIX - For a minute, Mike D'Antoni thought he was back in Italy.
But his memories weren't stoked by any four-hour dinners or five-hour bus rides through the Italian countryside.
What brought the memories flooding back were the sweet sounds of Motown.
It was a January trip, the Phoenix Suns' longest this season, and D'Antoni's players were singing along with each other as they sat in the back of the bus.
As D'Antoni listened from the front, the camaraderie and closeness made him think of his years spent overseas as a player and coach at Milano and Treviso.
He laughed, and smiled with satisfaction.
"It's hard in this day and age, what with cell phones and iPods and everything else that interferes with relationships, but these guys seem to genuinely like each other and are working toward a common goal," D'Antoni said. "That makes it fun."
Winning certainly helps, and for a team that won only 29 games in 2003-04, the resurgent Suns (46-14) are the feel-good story of the NBA this season.
D'Antoni is a close second.
Only 51/2 years after being fired by the Denver Nuggets, he is in the running for NBA Coach of the Year honors.
On Sunday, Denver fans will get another look at the man once deemed unworthy to lead the Nuggets when D'Antoni brings his up-tempo style to the Pepsi Center (7 p.m., Altitude).
"Mike has been recognized internationally as a great basketball mind, and I think people in the States now realize it, too," Suns general manager Bryan Colangelo said.
In the late 1990s, that was not the case.
In 1997, the Nuggets hired the former Italian League standout as player personnel director, then promoted him to coach for the 1998-1999 season.
But the team went only 14-36 in a lockout-shortened season. When the Nuggets were sold and new ownership gave Dan Issel approval to run the basketball operation and become coach, D'Antoni got the boot in September 1999.
At the time, D'Antoni admitted he was blindsided by Issel's move. But he blamed himself for being naive about the politics of the situation and vowed he would not be again.
And though upset then, particularly at the timing of his pink slip, today he insists there is no lingering bitterness.
"You're human, and it does take a while (to get over it)," D'Antoni said. "But I've been in basketball about 40 years and if you add up all the bad things that happen to you and hold resentment, you'd be a ticked-off person. You've got to let it go or it will eat you up."
Passion to compete
That is not to say the competitive fire does not burn intensely in the mild-mannered D'Antoni.
His father was a legendary high school basketball coach in West Virginia and Ohio, and on his mom's side his roots extend to the Hatfields and McCoys (a cousin on his mother's side was a Hatfield).
Growing up in the tiny coal-mining town of Mullens, W.Va., only fueled his competitive spirit.
"Ping-Pong, Monopoly, it didn't matter, we always competed and always enjoyed the competition," said brother Dan, a stellar prep coach in South Carolina for nearly 30 years.
In the house, they played football on their knees and sock basketball in their rooms.
When their mother was not scolding them for roughhousing around the furniture, she was waiting for them at the table for a game of gin rummy, bridge or Risk.
"You lose a quarter to her, it was like blood," Dan said. "You didn't play Monopoly just to keep score. They'd be on the refrigerator for everyone to see.
"We knew who won the most Risk games that year, who had the highest score on the pinball machine in the basement. We had records for everything. That was the type of life we lived."
That Mike took losing hard was evident in a story Dan tells about his younger brother pounding his head on the wall of his room one day.
Their mother quickly stopped that with a bucket of cold water.
"If you can't take it any better than that, just quit," she chided.
"He obviously rebounded," said Dan, four years older than Mike.
The right move
D'Antoni went on to play basketball at Marshall, graduating as the school's career assists leader and dreaming of a career in the NBA.
But after struggling to make it with Kansas City-Omaha and being cut by San Antonio, D'Antoni took a different route to fame - via Italy.
His last name (his father's side of the family immigrated from Italy), good looks and impressive ball-handling skills made him an instant hit abroad.
Though the Chicago Bulls had all but guaranteed D'Antoni a roster spot two years later, he found himself at a crossroad.
If he had left Europe to play in even one game in the NBA, the rules back then would have barred him from playing again in Italy.
When a leg injury left D'Antoni hobbled and Milano offered him more money to return, he packed his bags and caught the last flight out of Chicago.
D'Antoni's stay in Italy would span 18 years, with him becoming Olympia's career leading scorer. He guided it to five league championships, then later added two titles as coach of Treviso.
"I could do no wrong," D'Antoni said of his time in Italy.
He was so popular, fans voted him the greatest point guard in Italian League history.
Dan D'Antoni got an opportunity to see his brother's popularity firsthand when they walked into a women's title game near Milan.
Thousands of opposing fans that had been chanting back and forth in the packed arena suddenly turned their attention to D'Antoni.
The Milan fans began chanting his name in wild admiration, while the visiting fans chanted it with a few curse words attached.
"They yelled for a good 15 minutes," Dan said.
Afterward, though, even the ones yelling his name derisively got in line for his autograph.
Bright future
Though there are those who believe D'Antoni would have found success playing in the NBA, he has no regrets.
"I don't know how long I would have played and probably would have been out of work and doing something else with my life," said D'Antoni, who has
dual citizenship, speaks Italian fluently and has co-authored two books. "You make decisions in life for certain reasons, and some of the reasons you really don't know. You've just got to go with the feeling you have, and it worked out for me."
The same might be said about his move to Phoenix.
Though his first season hardly was one to remember (he took over last year after 21 games and the Suns finished 29-53), D'Antoni and management had a plan.
They had a solid foundation with Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion and Joe Johnson, then added two key pieces to the puzzle with the off-season acquisitions of Quentin Richardson and Steve Nash.
Though some believe it took courage to go with the small-ball lineup, D'Antoni said it was a no-brainer with Nash on board.
Today, the offense he runs is not that much different from the one he used in his first coaching job at Milan.
It has bred unselfishness and the cohesiveness that was evident in the Motown sing-along.
"It's rare in this league when you get a group of guys like that," said Jimmy Jackson, an NBA veteran added to the roster in January. "You've got to try to keep that going."
That's where D'Antoni comes in.
"He just has a way about him," said New Jersey Nets president Rod Thorn, who grew up about 30 miles from D'Antoni's hometown and coached him for St. Louis of the American Basketball Association. "When you're around him, you don't feel uptight. He's got a way about him that relaxes people."
Dan D'Antoni said his brother truly believes in people and trusts them. Thorn said there's no pretense.
"What you see is what you get. He's just a good human being," Thorn said. "I'm very, very happy at his success."
The D'Antoni file
• Age: 53
• Personal: Married to Laurel, whom he met in Milan, Italy. They have one son, Michael, 8.
• Worked: As an analyst for NBA.com after the 1998-99 regular season.
• Quote: "He was like Michael Jordan without the athleticism." - Brother Dan D'Antoni, on Mike's style as a player.
• Notable: Italians reportedly nicknamed him Arsenio Lupin after a European film about an elegant man who turned cat burglar at night.
• In Italy: Won five league championships in 13 seasons as a Milan player and was two-time Italian League Coach of the Year.
• D'Antoni, on whether Phoenix's up-tempo style will be successful in the playoffs: "We have to dispel (the criticism) at each level. We don't know 100 percent, but we do think the style works. It's silly to think that the Boston Celtics of old or the Denver Nuggets, when they were running, or the Lakers, when they were running, couldn't win a championship. A lot of them did. But a lot of championships are won by making shots and getting some lucky bounces, and that will have to happen for us."
A change of seasons
• The Phoenix Suns are on pace to go 63-19 this season. That would be a 34-game improvement from last season, when they went 29-53. A look at the biggest turnarounds from one season to the next in NBA history:
Team Year W L Pct Year W L Pct Difference
1. San Antonio Spurs 1996-97 20 62 .244 1997-98 56 26 .683 +36
2. San Antonio Spurs 1988-89 21 61 .256 1989-90 56 26 .683 +35
3. Boston Celtics 1978-79 29 53 .354 1979-80 61 21 .744 +32
4. Milwaukee Bucks 1968-69 27 55 .329 1969-70 56 26 .683 +29
5. Phoenix Suns 1987-88 28 54 .341 1988-89 55 27 .671 +27
6t New Jersey Nets 2000-01 26 56 .317 2001-02 52 30 .634 +26
Denver Nuggets 2002-03 17 65 .207 2003-04 43 39 .524 +26
8. Cleveland Cavaliers 1990-91 33 49 .402 1991-92 57 25 .695 +24
9t Phoenix Suns 1968-69 16 66 .195 1969-70 39 43 .476 +23
Golden St. Warriors 1987-88 20 62 .244 1988-89 43 39 .524 +23
------------
It'll be tough to beat those two SA records because their records were 20-62 & 21-61 in the years before they got David Robinson & Tim Duncan. If we were 20-62 last season we could have a +43 game improvement (approximately).
