Mike D'Antoni: Career Suicide in NYC

Now let's look at Chicago.  The Bulls have two budding young big men in Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah who can both haul tail up the court at the drop of a hat.  Drew Gooden would have no trouble adjusting to a run-and-gun system either, despite the weight he has put on since entering the league.  The Bulls have an overcrowded and extremely talented back court rotation, with both the 3-point gunners that D'Antoni loves (Hinrich, Gordon, Duhon, Nocioni) as well as the slashers D'Antoni requires (Sefalosha, Nocioni, Hughes) to set-up those shots early in the shot clock by driving-and-kicking and/or finishing at the rim. 

Last year's fluke choke job aside, the Chicago Bulls are a team that is ready to compete now, especially in a weak Eastern Conference.  It could even be argued that the inhibiting, anti-D'Antoni philosophy of Scott Skiles could have been holding this group of young gunners back from realizing their true potential.  The Bulls and D'Antoni seemed like a match made in heaven. 

Until the money came into play.

Look, it's hard to really blame a guy for following the money and wanting to live in Manhattan.  However, looking at the two situations he had to choose between, it is apparent that, from a pure basketball perspective, he made an extremely poor decision.  With that roster and that nightmare salary cap situation in New York, to find success, D'Antoni will either have to transform those guys to fit into his run-and-gun system (the fact that the roster is filled with guys coaches have been trying to "transform" for their entire careers is another story), or D'Antoni will have to transform his run-and-gun philosophy to fit a sluggish and sedentary Knicks roster. 

Both approaches are long-run strategies that will take at least two seasons to come to fruition and we all know how fickle New York fans can be.  New York crucified Larry Brown after the stinker turned in his one season as the Knicks coach, and he's won championships.  He is now barely able to show his face around the league again and came to Michael Jordan on his hands and knees for the Bobcats job, where before the Knicks gig Larry Brown probably wouldn't have even returned Jordan's call. 

Can you imagine how New York will react when multi-millionaire D'Antoni is coming off his second consecutive 50+ loss season into the third year of his lucrative, some might even say, exorbitant contract?  With the aforementioned cap and roster issues, two consecutive losing seasons seem inevitable for D'Antoni

D'Antoni, like Larry Brown, will be keel-hauled in the New York media as an overpaid and underachieving coach who can only win with a gimmick run-and-gun scheme and most certainly cannot win when it counts most in the playoffs.

D'Antoni could have gone to Chicago instead, transformed and molded that young roster to fit his scheme perfectly, and bring basketball glory back to a basketball city that has been starved of that glory as of late. 

The Bulls roster is so full of young talent that he could have won with the status quo roster or parlayed some of those young guys into a superstar and brought a marquee face back to the Windy City. 

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?