George O'Brien
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KTAR: - D'Antoni - 4-16-04
Kevin Ray: Thanks for joining us one final time. I know it has to be kind of an upbeat feeling this evening. One game, but still, that last game you love to win and that’s exactly what your crew did (Wednesday) night.
Mike D’Antoni: There’s not too many seasons that you want to win the last game unless it’s the playoff situation. It was good after we got beat here by the Clippers – kind of a downer, we should have won that game. But to finish off at Utah, who beat us three times – Utah’s a team that we need to jump over next year. It’s good going into the summer. It doesn’t mean a whole lot at the end of the summer, but at least it was a short plane ride back (to Phoenix).
Ray: A short plane ride back and as I understand from talking to some folks, a very enjoyable one for the guys. That’s certainly has to make everybody feel good. I think as the Suns fans look at this – and really not looking at the overall record of 29-53 – and I think that’s really the message the organization has been trying to send over the last few months. Look at the individuals and then look at the collective group as they played, in particular over the last couple of months. You really have to be pleased with what you’ve seen and the overall development.
D’Antoni: We still are 29-54. You can’t get around it. We’re pretty upset about it and we don’t want that to happen again. Hopefully, this summer we can make some adjustments and go forward. If you look, each player has improved a lot and that’s going to mean that we should be better next year. Again, we need some luck this summer, but we’re just pretty excited about where everybody is right now.
Ray: One of the things that has impressed me about Amaré (Stoudemire) is his ability in the last month to get himself to the free throw line.
D’Antoni: No doubt about it. That’s going to be enormous for us as we go forward. Just to be able to go to the last three minutes of the game knowing that we could at least get some foul shots out of it and having him put so much pressure on the defense will get other people open. The big question and the big thing that he has to do is be able to make everybody better around him. We know he can score and he knows he will always put up big numbers. The next step is to put up big numbers and win. He’s trying to figure that out and we’re going to help him figure that out and if we do, then we’ll be real successful.
Ray: This season has been a study in chemistry. Things just never really got on track. While the wins weren’t there, you could see this team beginning to enjoy themselves or at least enjoy being around (each other) and that is the one thing that is so often overlooked and underrated.
D’Antoni: Certain guys play a certain way. Sometimes chemistry just doesn’t click just because (players) games are different. Not that you have bad guys or different agendas, just that the way they need to play to be successful or have been successful in the past, doesn’t click with another player. Management sees that, coaches get frustrated with that and you end up trying to change a player who can’t change or you frustrate him because you’re asking something from him that he can’t do. That’s when it goes south on you. We’re pretty fortunate right now because we have a bunch of guys that compliment each other pretty well. They’ll have to adjust some parts of their game and they’ll have to make little adjustments, but there’s no one that completely has to change his game to play successfully with the other guys.
Caller (Gary, Tempe): What do you see for next year? Are you guys going to bring some hot players or are we going to see the same old Suns trying to get to the playoffs but before you know it they get knocked off by a big team?
D’Antoni: Sounds like a frustrated fan. I’ll tell you what, though; he could be with a lot different franchise. Up to this year, it was the (fifth-) best record in the league, ever. They have had success here and things have been done and things have been done really well. There’s 29 teams and everybody’s trying to get it done. There’s not a whole lot of (Shaquille O’Neals) and (Tim) Duncans and Yao Mings out there. We’re trying to do it a certain way the we think we have two or three guys that can get it done. Next year we definitely want to get to the playoffs. Again, a little bit’s going to be what we add this summer to the table, whether it’s a hot shot or whether it’s just good complimentary players that make us better. Playoffs would be the minimum that we’ll shoot for and we’ll see how it goes. We’ll see how fast the development is and how these guys can figure out winning.
Ray: A lot of fans went into (Thursday) night’s game saying, “No, we don’t want to win.” Kind of true to this team’s nature, they were not going to allow a few more ping-pong balls sway them from grabbing a win.
D’Antoni: And you can’t do that. We were competing no matter what and at the end of the day if you have a four percent chance to get the No. 1 (pick in the draft) or a six percent chance, it’s more important that Amaré Stoudemire understands what it takes to win, to fight at all costs. It’s not like we should have played somebody different. We only had five guys (by the end of the game), so we were playing everybody at the end. I thought that through the whole process we try to do it right. We wanted to win, but we also wanted to develop our young guys. We didn’t to sacrifice that too much, even though it might have cost us some wins in the long run. You can’t ask these guys to put it out on the practice floor and not win. It just can’t be done. Now at the end of the night, you might have said, “Too bad we did win, we could have had a better shot (at the No. 1 pick),” but we’re pretty happy right now.
Ray: It was clear all season long that defensively is where this team was most deficient. How does a team get better defensively in the offseason?
D’Antoni: I think getting older, getting stronger, getting in the weight room, will help a lot. Just these guys this year seeing offenses and understanding the schemes that we had and they become second nature. I thought we were getting better defensively. That doesn’t mean that we were good by any long shot. But that’s one way. They could just automatically come into it as they get older and just working on your body. Mostly, defense is just concentration at that moment and playing hard. We just have to get through to them as a coaching staff. You can set the tome in preseason and in training camp that defense is the most important thing that we need. If you get 10-12 players that can play, then the guys that don’t want to play defense don’t play. That’s the best way to do it.
Caller (David, Chandler): I understand we can’t talk about specific players being injected into the system or onto the team. Let’s say a player the caliber of Kobe Bryant was injected into it, how does that affect our team, as far as who’s going to play what position? Or if we went after a player the caliber of Steve Nash?
D’Antoni: The month of May is going to be really important and that’s why we’re going to be down at America West Arena every day with all kinds of people discussing this and different opinions, and looking at different scenarios and seeing what is available. I think we are pretty unique in the sense that we need a perimeter very good player and that could be a lot of guys. We could plug him in at different spots and we will get better. If it’s a real good perimeter (player), whether it’s a point guard or whether it’s a shooting guard, putting him there and maybe moving Joe (Johnson) over, and having Leandro (Barbosa) come off the bench – you never know how it’s going to work out – we will improve. After that, you make a decision if that’s good enough to get further up the ladder. Is that good enough to be fourth place? First place? There’s all kinds of scenarios, but just by adding a good player on the perimeter and a good player underneath, we will be a good playoff caliber team and hopefully we get lucky and hit the right spot, it will be even better than that. It will be one step at a time. You can’t solve all the problems in one summer or one free agency.
Ray: Let’s talk about Leandro Barbosa, who kind of got thrown into the fire a little bit. After this deal (with New York), you guys flirted with the idea of bringing him off the bench. You decided to throw him out there and start him. Talk about his overall development and progress.
D’Antoni: He did a great job. His English is not the greatest and that’s one thins this summer we have on his list to do and get better. As a point guard, to be able to communicate and tell guys where to go, he has to do that. But without having a command of the English language and not really being a true point, and not ever playing defense in his whole life because in Brazil, I’m sure in that league he didn’t play defense, he was wonderful. He was the first to practice every day. He’s just a super kid, has a big heart. He takes knocks, he gets back up. Not many people know, but the last two months he had severe tendonitis below his kneecap. After every practice he would ice it down and he was in pain a lot, but you would never know it. I’m just really fortunate to be able to work with him and have a guy like him because he’s done everything to get better, and he will continue to do that. Whether he becomes a point guard or the staring point guard, or a guy that’s in the rotation, he will for a long time be an important part of this team. His development and as good as he gets, will mirror the success of the Suns a little bit.
Ray: When you look at where this team can go defensively, I think Leandro, JJ and Amaré can dramatically swing how much better this team is defensively, because I think Joe has turned into one of the top, if not the team’s top defender. Amaré, just with his shot blocking ability, and Leandro, because of his quickness and his hands, and that long reach.
D’Antoni: Potentially they could be very good defenders. The definition of potential is, “Up to now, you haven’t done it.” As soon as they realize we could be really good and scary good, then if we get really good defensively then we’re going to be successful. That’s the question mark and I have faith in these guys that they will do it. They’ll figure it out and we’ll get better then.
Ray: How much concern is there about Zarko Cabarkapa? We saw this young man come in, deal with some adversity with hernia surgery in training camp and was just beginning to really be that player that everybody in the organization had envisioned, goes down with the punk move by Danny Fortson and never even came close to being that player again. It’s clear his psyche has been rattled. How much concern is there about his offseason?
D’Antoni: There’s concern any time a player doesn’t perform the way we had hoped –we saw this summer that he was good, he couldn’t fool us for two months, so we know it’s there. It’s just a matter of regaining his confidence, working a little harder in the weight room, getting stronger and getting over the fear of breaking his wrist. Being in a foreign country for the first time and he’s a very sensitive kid anyway, and you have somebody that undercuts you and you have people questioning whether you can play or not, it’s tough. There’s all kinds of reasons he didn’t play well going down the stretch. He’s going to try out for the Serbian Olympic team and being home with his coaches for a little while, then he’ll come back here to regain the confidence he had when he came over the first time. I think he can. He was getting a lot better defensively. I always worried that he couldn’t guard anybody, that offensively he would be so good that he could get on the floor anyway. At the end of the year his defense was okay, but offensively he was just horrible and that’s not him. We’ve seen him do too many things too many times that are impressive. We have to have some patience. Then the last step he’s going to have to take and we can’t take it for him. Somewhere, he’s going to have to say, “You know what, I’ve got to kick somebody’s rear.” He’s going to have to do that and when he does that then he’ll blossom out. A little bit of patience and we’ll work with him. He’s still a young kid and this will be his second year in and he’ll know what to expect and hopefully at the end of the summer we’ll have another person that most people are not counting on right now.
Ray: Kudos to you and your and staff. It was a pleasure working with you guys. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you quite frequently down at America West Arena.
D’Antoni: It should be an interesting summer.
Kevin Ray: Thanks for joining us one final time. I know it has to be kind of an upbeat feeling this evening. One game, but still, that last game you love to win and that’s exactly what your crew did (Wednesday) night.
Mike D’Antoni: There’s not too many seasons that you want to win the last game unless it’s the playoff situation. It was good after we got beat here by the Clippers – kind of a downer, we should have won that game. But to finish off at Utah, who beat us three times – Utah’s a team that we need to jump over next year. It’s good going into the summer. It doesn’t mean a whole lot at the end of the summer, but at least it was a short plane ride back (to Phoenix).
Ray: A short plane ride back and as I understand from talking to some folks, a very enjoyable one for the guys. That’s certainly has to make everybody feel good. I think as the Suns fans look at this – and really not looking at the overall record of 29-53 – and I think that’s really the message the organization has been trying to send over the last few months. Look at the individuals and then look at the collective group as they played, in particular over the last couple of months. You really have to be pleased with what you’ve seen and the overall development.
D’Antoni: We still are 29-54. You can’t get around it. We’re pretty upset about it and we don’t want that to happen again. Hopefully, this summer we can make some adjustments and go forward. If you look, each player has improved a lot and that’s going to mean that we should be better next year. Again, we need some luck this summer, but we’re just pretty excited about where everybody is right now.
Ray: One of the things that has impressed me about Amaré (Stoudemire) is his ability in the last month to get himself to the free throw line.
D’Antoni: No doubt about it. That’s going to be enormous for us as we go forward. Just to be able to go to the last three minutes of the game knowing that we could at least get some foul shots out of it and having him put so much pressure on the defense will get other people open. The big question and the big thing that he has to do is be able to make everybody better around him. We know he can score and he knows he will always put up big numbers. The next step is to put up big numbers and win. He’s trying to figure that out and we’re going to help him figure that out and if we do, then we’ll be real successful.
Ray: This season has been a study in chemistry. Things just never really got on track. While the wins weren’t there, you could see this team beginning to enjoy themselves or at least enjoy being around (each other) and that is the one thing that is so often overlooked and underrated.
D’Antoni: Certain guys play a certain way. Sometimes chemistry just doesn’t click just because (players) games are different. Not that you have bad guys or different agendas, just that the way they need to play to be successful or have been successful in the past, doesn’t click with another player. Management sees that, coaches get frustrated with that and you end up trying to change a player who can’t change or you frustrate him because you’re asking something from him that he can’t do. That’s when it goes south on you. We’re pretty fortunate right now because we have a bunch of guys that compliment each other pretty well. They’ll have to adjust some parts of their game and they’ll have to make little adjustments, but there’s no one that completely has to change his game to play successfully with the other guys.
Caller (Gary, Tempe): What do you see for next year? Are you guys going to bring some hot players or are we going to see the same old Suns trying to get to the playoffs but before you know it they get knocked off by a big team?
D’Antoni: Sounds like a frustrated fan. I’ll tell you what, though; he could be with a lot different franchise. Up to this year, it was the (fifth-) best record in the league, ever. They have had success here and things have been done and things have been done really well. There’s 29 teams and everybody’s trying to get it done. There’s not a whole lot of (Shaquille O’Neals) and (Tim) Duncans and Yao Mings out there. We’re trying to do it a certain way the we think we have two or three guys that can get it done. Next year we definitely want to get to the playoffs. Again, a little bit’s going to be what we add this summer to the table, whether it’s a hot shot or whether it’s just good complimentary players that make us better. Playoffs would be the minimum that we’ll shoot for and we’ll see how it goes. We’ll see how fast the development is and how these guys can figure out winning.
Ray: A lot of fans went into (Thursday) night’s game saying, “No, we don’t want to win.” Kind of true to this team’s nature, they were not going to allow a few more ping-pong balls sway them from grabbing a win.
D’Antoni: And you can’t do that. We were competing no matter what and at the end of the day if you have a four percent chance to get the No. 1 (pick in the draft) or a six percent chance, it’s more important that Amaré Stoudemire understands what it takes to win, to fight at all costs. It’s not like we should have played somebody different. We only had five guys (by the end of the game), so we were playing everybody at the end. I thought that through the whole process we try to do it right. We wanted to win, but we also wanted to develop our young guys. We didn’t to sacrifice that too much, even though it might have cost us some wins in the long run. You can’t ask these guys to put it out on the practice floor and not win. It just can’t be done. Now at the end of the night, you might have said, “Too bad we did win, we could have had a better shot (at the No. 1 pick),” but we’re pretty happy right now.
Ray: It was clear all season long that defensively is where this team was most deficient. How does a team get better defensively in the offseason?
D’Antoni: I think getting older, getting stronger, getting in the weight room, will help a lot. Just these guys this year seeing offenses and understanding the schemes that we had and they become second nature. I thought we were getting better defensively. That doesn’t mean that we were good by any long shot. But that’s one way. They could just automatically come into it as they get older and just working on your body. Mostly, defense is just concentration at that moment and playing hard. We just have to get through to them as a coaching staff. You can set the tome in preseason and in training camp that defense is the most important thing that we need. If you get 10-12 players that can play, then the guys that don’t want to play defense don’t play. That’s the best way to do it.
Caller (David, Chandler): I understand we can’t talk about specific players being injected into the system or onto the team. Let’s say a player the caliber of Kobe Bryant was injected into it, how does that affect our team, as far as who’s going to play what position? Or if we went after a player the caliber of Steve Nash?
D’Antoni: The month of May is going to be really important and that’s why we’re going to be down at America West Arena every day with all kinds of people discussing this and different opinions, and looking at different scenarios and seeing what is available. I think we are pretty unique in the sense that we need a perimeter very good player and that could be a lot of guys. We could plug him in at different spots and we will get better. If it’s a real good perimeter (player), whether it’s a point guard or whether it’s a shooting guard, putting him there and maybe moving Joe (Johnson) over, and having Leandro (Barbosa) come off the bench – you never know how it’s going to work out – we will improve. After that, you make a decision if that’s good enough to get further up the ladder. Is that good enough to be fourth place? First place? There’s all kinds of scenarios, but just by adding a good player on the perimeter and a good player underneath, we will be a good playoff caliber team and hopefully we get lucky and hit the right spot, it will be even better than that. It will be one step at a time. You can’t solve all the problems in one summer or one free agency.
Ray: Let’s talk about Leandro Barbosa, who kind of got thrown into the fire a little bit. After this deal (with New York), you guys flirted with the idea of bringing him off the bench. You decided to throw him out there and start him. Talk about his overall development and progress.
D’Antoni: He did a great job. His English is not the greatest and that’s one thins this summer we have on his list to do and get better. As a point guard, to be able to communicate and tell guys where to go, he has to do that. But without having a command of the English language and not really being a true point, and not ever playing defense in his whole life because in Brazil, I’m sure in that league he didn’t play defense, he was wonderful. He was the first to practice every day. He’s just a super kid, has a big heart. He takes knocks, he gets back up. Not many people know, but the last two months he had severe tendonitis below his kneecap. After every practice he would ice it down and he was in pain a lot, but you would never know it. I’m just really fortunate to be able to work with him and have a guy like him because he’s done everything to get better, and he will continue to do that. Whether he becomes a point guard or the staring point guard, or a guy that’s in the rotation, he will for a long time be an important part of this team. His development and as good as he gets, will mirror the success of the Suns a little bit.
Ray: When you look at where this team can go defensively, I think Leandro, JJ and Amaré can dramatically swing how much better this team is defensively, because I think Joe has turned into one of the top, if not the team’s top defender. Amaré, just with his shot blocking ability, and Leandro, because of his quickness and his hands, and that long reach.
D’Antoni: Potentially they could be very good defenders. The definition of potential is, “Up to now, you haven’t done it.” As soon as they realize we could be really good and scary good, then if we get really good defensively then we’re going to be successful. That’s the question mark and I have faith in these guys that they will do it. They’ll figure it out and we’ll get better then.
Ray: How much concern is there about Zarko Cabarkapa? We saw this young man come in, deal with some adversity with hernia surgery in training camp and was just beginning to really be that player that everybody in the organization had envisioned, goes down with the punk move by Danny Fortson and never even came close to being that player again. It’s clear his psyche has been rattled. How much concern is there about his offseason?
D’Antoni: There’s concern any time a player doesn’t perform the way we had hoped –we saw this summer that he was good, he couldn’t fool us for two months, so we know it’s there. It’s just a matter of regaining his confidence, working a little harder in the weight room, getting stronger and getting over the fear of breaking his wrist. Being in a foreign country for the first time and he’s a very sensitive kid anyway, and you have somebody that undercuts you and you have people questioning whether you can play or not, it’s tough. There’s all kinds of reasons he didn’t play well going down the stretch. He’s going to try out for the Serbian Olympic team and being home with his coaches for a little while, then he’ll come back here to regain the confidence he had when he came over the first time. I think he can. He was getting a lot better defensively. I always worried that he couldn’t guard anybody, that offensively he would be so good that he could get on the floor anyway. At the end of the year his defense was okay, but offensively he was just horrible and that’s not him. We’ve seen him do too many things too many times that are impressive. We have to have some patience. Then the last step he’s going to have to take and we can’t take it for him. Somewhere, he’s going to have to say, “You know what, I’ve got to kick somebody’s rear.” He’s going to have to do that and when he does that then he’ll blossom out. A little bit of patience and we’ll work with him. He’s still a young kid and this will be his second year in and he’ll know what to expect and hopefully at the end of the summer we’ll have another person that most people are not counting on right now.
Ray: Kudos to you and your and staff. It was a pleasure working with you guys. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you quite frequently down at America West Arena.
D’Antoni: It should be an interesting summer.
