New York Knicks: Can They Win a Title with Mike D'Antoni as Head Coach?

Other than Erik Spoelstra, Mike D'Antoni is probably the most questioned head coach in the NBA.  His offense-first system has been questioned ever since he led the Phoenix Suns to great regular seasons, but never to the NBA Finals.

Rather than just going off on a rant about why D'Antnoi can't win a title with the New York Knicks under his current mentality, I want to actually take a look at what he can do with the Knicks under his system.

First, D'Antoni's track record.  He has coached two 60-win teams and two 50-win teams along with a 42-win Knicks team last year.

He has coached three teams that had no chance of making the playoffs, starting with the 1999 14-win Denver Nuggets, who went two players deep with Antonio McDyess and Nick Van Exel, along with an underdeveloped Chauncey Billups.  Then he coached two years-worth of salary-dumping Knicks teams and actually got more out of them than I would think most coaches could have, winning 61 games in two years.

When D'Antonio is given talent, he can turn teams around, that much is a given.  In 2005, D'Antoni won the Coach of the Year Award (which might as well be renamed the Coach of the Team With the Most Improvement From the Previous Season Award, but the COTWMIFPS doesn't have the ring that COY has) and has coached two teams to the Western Conference Finals.

The problem has been that D'Antoni can't win the important games.

In four years with the Suns, in which they made the playoffs, D'Antoni's team was eliminated by the Spurs three times and the Mavericks once, along with being eliminated by the Celtics in last year's first round.  D'Antoni needs to take notes from the teams that beat him, especially the Spurs and Celtics.

San Antonio and Boston have been defensive teams over the years, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the Knicks need to turn into defensive stalwarts overnight.  Rather, the Spurs and Celtics have been better at making their opponents play at their pace.

The Spurs have used their veterans, big men and fundamental offensive style to play smarter than their opponents and slow the game down in a way that suits them.  Boston does the same, but uses their crafty point guard to create an inside-outside game that forces opponents to slow down on defense or get beat either in the post or from the three-point line.

D'Antoni's Suns were too heavily dependent on Steve Nash creating offense for the team, so much so that he was assisting on nearly 50 percent of their plays from 2005 to 2008.  They became even more dependent on him in the playoffs, where he was up to nearly 56 percent at his peak in 2007.

Now, all of this wouldn't be a problem if they had a defense on the other end of the court to fall back on as a safety net, but their defense was so invisible that in playoff series in which they were eliminated, his Suns only held opponents under 100 points eight times in 22 games.

So does that mean D'Antoni needs to scrap his system and concentrate on defense?  Not necessarily.  What he needs is the correct personnel that can both run a D'Antoni offense and still hold their own on defense, something Steve Nash just couldn't do.

Obviously, the ideal player to get in this situation would be Chris Paul, who is not only able to run an offense as well as any point guard in the league, but is also one of the top three defensive guards in the game.

However, Paul isn't necessarily the guy they need to go out and get to have a shot at a title.  All they really need is any well-rounded point guard who you could call one of the 15 best in the league, which would then give them room to sign some upper-echelon role players.

They don't necessarily need to get that top-tier playmaking point guard, because they have a playmaker small forward and power forward/center (whatever you want to call Amar'e).

Unfortunately, I think they got rid of the perfect point guard for them when they traded for Carmelo Anthony in Raymond Felton.  Felton has an uncanny nose for the ball and is growing as an offensive point guard who knows how to run an offense.

So in the end, I would say, yes, New York could win a title with D'Antoni, because in the end, he is a good enough coach to get them deep into the playoffs. The only thing that is going to take them over the top from there is the group of guys on the court.