Mike D'Antoni is a very happy man right now.
A very happy, very rich man.
D'Antonie was presented with two very attractive options this weekend: go to a team in Chicago with a great young nucleus ready to win now, or follow the money and end up in Manhattan coaching one of the marquee teams in the league. D'Antoni followed the money, as I believe most of us would. However, when one stops to consider the two situations in detail, the future for Mike D'Antoni and the New York Knicks might be a lot bleaker than most expect, because there were factors involved in this decision far more pertinent and than simply following the money.
Mike D'Antoni is an offensive coach.
D'Antoni's teams love to score, and they usually find themselves in the triple digits thanks to an ungodly amount of fast break points and shots taken early in the shot clock countdown.
This was the biggest knock on the Shaq deal earlier this season: that the addition of the Diesel would be far more inhibiting to D'Antoni's breakneck style of basketball than beneficial, and hindsight tells us those fears were absolutely founded. Pheonix looked lost with Shaq and lost the swagger and intensity that they had carried over after the sham that was the Spurs series in last year's playoffs. Shaq then proceeded to get absolutely served by Timmy D in the playoffs as D'Antoni's Suns lost the spring in their step that had defined that team for the past few years.
D'Antoni is phenomenal with the right group of players to fit his system, this is a group of players that can hit outside jumpers early in the shot clock and get up and down the court on the fast break. Without those players, D'Antoni's teams look sluggish, every possession a laborious effort to find some way to score in a set half court offense.
Now try to find another set of players that embody that antithesis of the players D'Antoni needs to succeed better than the 2008-09 New York Knicks.
If Shaq slowed down D'Antoni's offensive flow, I cannot even fathom how D'Antoni will try to work in Eddie Curry and Zach Randolph. If Eddie Curry won't even run to McDonald's, how do you expect him to be flying up and down the court on a fast-breaking team trying to score in the 100's every night?
Taking shots early in the shot clock shouldn't be a problem for the Knicks, because that has been a staple of New York basketball since Isiah Thomas haphazardly threw together this group of underachieving and overpaid losers. However, D'Antoni's system needs his players to shoot a good percentage on those shots early in the shot clock, otherwise he'll end up with a win-loss record that looks like, well, the New York Knicks'. Now factor in the fact that they won't have a shred of cap room until after the 2009 season (see: Starbury, Curry, Randolph, and Crawford), short of a Pau Gasol-esque grossly one-sided trade, D'Antoni will be working with this roster for at least another two seasons. D'Antoni will need to completely re-invent himself as a coach, and will need to completely re-invent his system and philosophy to have any semblance of success in New York.
4 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Alex Callahan about 1 year ago
They really have no assets to trade, and the only way that the Knicks actually have a competitive season (and this is a big if) is if they hit the jackpot and are able to get in the top two of the first round. Even then they still might not be competitive. Competitive in the East is 10 games under .500. If the Knicks did everything perfect, (trades, free agents in 2009, draft) they're still 2 years away from having any success. D'Antoni is an offense innovator, but I think he needs specific pieces in place to have success. The big one being Nash. Where in the hell is he going to find another one of those? Calderon would be his best bet, but there's no money as well as no pieces to trade (besides the roughly #5 pick in 2008)
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Chad Ridgeway about 1 year ago
D'Antoni in Chicago would have gone to the second round of the playoffs and been COY next season.
However, the NY job isn't as terrible as it appears. Yes, the roster is a disaster, but he's got a good GM, an owner with the deepest pockets in the league (and who's more than willing to spend), and no Isaih.
Remember, in Phoenix, D'Antoni had a nosy GM and a penny pinching owner who robbed Phoenix of their depth.
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Norm Chapman about 1 year ago
Place the blame where it belongs, in the lap of Jerry Reinsdorf and to a lesser extent, John Paxson. They are the ones who screwed up the Bulls. D'Antoni wanted to coach the Bulls, but not at the price of his dignity and pride. They wanted to pick his coaches and his system. How dare they? Screw them! I have a feeling that D'Antoni will make the Knicks winners because the owners will let him have his way and he will assemble a winning combination.
Norm
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Mike Carley about 1 year ago
I def hear your point on the Bulls. They definitely didn't pull out all the stops to get D'Antoni. But you say he will "assemble a winning combination," and I can't agree with that. With what assets? With what cap room? Donnie Walsh has come out and said his goal is to try to get the Knicks under the cap again....by the 2010 season. They have a bunch of underachieving stars with monster contracts, which doesn't exactly make for the best trade bait, and they won't have any cap room to make any big free agent acquisitions for at least the next two seasons. My point was, for the immediate future, they are stuck with these guys, and given that fact I think Mike D'Antoni is setting himself up to fail. It's not whether or not Mike D'Antoni will want to reshape the Knicks' roster, its whether or not he even has that option and, for the next two seasons, it doesn't look like he will be able to. The most interesting part will be to see how long the fans and media in New York will accept a coach getting paid $6 mil a year leading a 20-30 win team, and whether that proverbial rope will be long enough to allow D'Antoni get out from under the Isiah-cap nightmare and allow D'Antoni to optimize that roster to his system 3-4 years down the road.
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