He's always been a great scorer in Houston but leading the league in assists is a surprise to just about everyone.
Take a bow, Mike D'Antoni.
That doesn't mean they'll be anymore than the Suns were under D'Antoni though, which was a 50 win and fade team. He won't be able to beat the Warriors, Spurs, or Clippers in the postseason.
Sorry but you can't make statements like this...how do you know? DA is not stupid and will have learned from his time at the Suns. Houston have the 4th best record in the league and are genuine contenders
this season already; a tweak here and a tweak there and who knows.
What could he do for the Suns though, now or long term? He might win about 35-40 games, which is just enough to piss off our fan base because our young guys won't be getting developed and we won't get a high draft pick either.
Again, how do you know? He's just turned Harden into an MVP candidate overseeing a meteoric rise in his assists (6.6 above his career average, 4.3 above his last season). Sure our backcourt trio aren't that good but we've seen Watson turn a 20 and five guy into literally (by one measure), the worst player in the league.
The point being that at this stage, anything is better than Watson and that definitely includes DA.
Half our team is on rookie contracts and unproven at the NBA level, D'Antoni won't be the one to get them ready and our roster as a whole doesn't mesh with his style or past, at all.
Again, how do you know? If he improves Harden by that much he probably could find a way with at least one of our back court - there's a ton of talent there that Watson is just not extracting.
I doubt with Bledsoe's injury history he could withstand a season under D'Antoni, which would make him virtually untradeable if he went down for another long term knee surgery.
This is going off tangent.
Both Bledsoe and Knight turn it over way too much in a slower style, I doubt they'd be better in a fast paced offense.
Strictly speaking we're the second fastest team in the league (click on the 'pace' header in the link), we're just very inefficient:
http://www.espn.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats/_/sort/paceFactor
Knight is just awful, I don't see running making him better.
He was 20 and 5 last year; DA couldn't possibly coach a decline worse than what Watson has.
Ulis is too young for D'Antoni.
Yet Dekker the rookie gets more minutes than any of ours.
If he couldn't use Pau Gasol in LA what makes anyone think he'd use Chandler or Len, who are both slower and have limited offensives games in comparison.
I don't think Pau was the main cause of his problems:
http://www.lakersnation.com/former-...ecalls-hostile-environment-in-l-a/2016/10/26/
Between the issue this article raises and what I said already about Kobe's habits vs DA's philosophy, it was a recipe for disaster. DA isn't entirely innocent I'm sure but there are mitigating factors.
There's virtually 0 chance of him developing Len into a solid NBA player also, which means just throwing away any chances he has of turning into a solid NBA Center, which he seems to be doing right now.
I'd like to develop Len but I'd prefer our team as a whole not to suck and Len is probably not the second coming of anyone special.
Do people forget that D'Antoni was the coach Amare had early in his career which helped ruin any chance of him becoming a capable defender?
So it's DA's fault that Amare can't defend? Not sure I buy that entirely although we definitely weren't good defensively as a whole.
All that to be the 9th or 10th seed in the West again, why?
Houston have gone from 17th to 4th in less than one season while we have managed to get worse, again. There is surely no comparison between Watson and DA as a better option.
Final Rant:
It's all moot anyway - we're lumbered with McD and I have little faith in him as a GM; he seems egocentric, quick to pass the blame, unable to build a team of the 'right' players, and at this stage may forever be known as the guy who traded for Brandon Knight (Lakers pick update: #8 and getting higher)...So while DA probably
wouldn't take us to the promised land he'd at least make us fun to watch as ball movement is just not overrated.