The Mike D'antoni Thread

[Scoooter]

I'd rather see Chauncey coach the team.

Even if we had Mozgov, D'antoni would still play Glass Body Turiaf.

Yeah what the **** was up with Ronny Turiaf this season? Was he always this fragile? I like the guy, his D, his energy, his beard. But spraining your knee every 20 minutes is not helpful.

[Clutch]

GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- Amare Stoudemire gave a strong endorsement Monday for retaining Mike D'Antoni as coach of the New York Knicks, while Carmelo Anthony wasn't quite as declarative but still offered praise for D'Antoni's job performance.
D'Antoni has one year remaining on his four-year contract, and team president Donnie Walsh also is entering the final season of his deal if the Knicks pick up his option.

Neither man spoke publicly Monday, a day after the Knicks were swept by the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs.

But Stoudemire said he wants them back.

"Oh, absolutely. Absolutely," Stoudemire said. "Donnie has done a phenomenal job. He's one of the main reasons why I'm here in New York. He turned the Knicks' franchise around. Coach D'Antoni is the reason why we had the winning record and had a chance to do something special in the playoffs if it wasn't for a few injuries. And so I definitely think both those guys will be back next season."

Anthony is ready to support the two if they make it back.
"I support whatever decision that they make," Anthony said. "If Mike is here, I've got his back 100 percent. If Donnie is here, I've got his back 100 percent. So I support all the decisions."

One of the most pressing decisions the Knicks need to make by Friday is whether to pick up the $14.2 million option on Chauncey Billups' contract or pay him a $3.7 million buyout. Billups said he wants to return to New York next season, in part to atone for the postseason failure that was partly attributable to his knee injury and to Stoudemire's back injury.

"Getting swept in the first round, I don't do this," Billups said. "We're on the move, and it's how fast can we get that elevator up?"

Stoudemire said he would like to see the Knicks add an additional center in the offseason, while Anthony said the team does not necessarily need a third star player and would be best served in the short term by having an entire season together.

The Knicks went 14-14 to close the regular season (including a six-game losing streak and a seven-game winning streak) after acquiring Anthony and Billups from the Denver Nuggets, finishing 42-40 for the franchise's first winning record in 10 years.

And while Anthony didn't go overboard with praise in speaking about D'Antoni, he did offer support.

"I can only speak on since when I got here," he said. "Due to the circumstances, we came a long way since I first got here. With the expectations being so high so quickly, for us to lose some games and take a step backward, and then close out the regular season winning the way we did, you have to take your hat off to Mike for being able to handle a situation like that -- losing damn near his whole team, having to start off fresh with something new. He lost four key components to his team.

"They had something rolling here, and for him to have to take on another challenge of getting everybody on the same page since we got here, I think it took a lot. I respect that from him," Anthony said.

Anthony said he expects to have input along with Stoudemire on the team's offseason personnel moves. He believes the Knicks should be a 50-plus win team for the foreseeable future and should set a goal for next season of finishing with the best record in the Eastern Conference.

He also said players from opposing teams have told him they want to come to New York.

"You just hear it. You'll be playing against guys, and everybody wants to play in New York now, especially with the excitement we brought back to the city," Anthony said. "A lot of players [have said] 'Man, I need to get there, I need to get there.' We'll see what happens with that, though."

http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/n...ory?id=6425723

I'm afraid D'Antoni will be back

[Sarcastic]

Really stupid move if they bring back MDA. He is a system coach, and needs certain types of players to fit his system. If the Knicks are not going to commit to bringing in those types of players, then what is the point of keeping him around for another year? He has never shown any ability to make adjustments to his style.

I think he should be coaching the Golden State Warriors. Imagine him with Steph Curry and Monta Ellis as his back court.

[Clutch]

Really stupid move if they bring back MDA. He is a system coach, and needs certain types of players to fit his system. If the Knicks are not going to commit to bringing in those types of players, then what is the point of keeping him around for another year? He has never shown any ability to make adjustments to his style.

I think he should be coaching the Golden State Warriors. Imagine him with Steph Curry and Monta Ellis as his back court.

I think he should be coaching Iowa Energy or Dakota Wizards

[franchize]

I can't place blame entirely on Mike D'Antoni.Sure he's a stubborn jackass but my thing is this.We gave him multiple chances to prove himself even though in my opinion and countless others,he's clearly shown he'd rather lose than adjust his coaching style.He's NEVER going to coach defense.That being said, if you know this but you wanna give the guy the chance to coach out his contract or watever,at least put guys around him that best fit what he doesn best.It's like putting buying a car that you know is unreliable and not changing it's oil.You already know your taking a risk,at least give yourself a chance!

[Clutch]

Stephen A. Smith: D'Antoni got to go

Now that the broomsticks have been unleashed and it has been emphatically established that the New York Knicks, for all their bluster and bloviating, are nothing more than an average franchise with an exorbitant payroll, it's time to move forward. To put legitimate pieces in place to preserve assets and eliminate liabilities.

And after watching the Knicks' first-round loss to the Boston Celtics -- how they spent most of Easter weekend stinking up Madison Square Garden before a 36-year-old journeyman point guard nearly came to the rescue -- priority No. 1 is too obvious to ignore any longer:

Mike D'Antoni has to go.

It is not easy to call for the exodus of a coach who averaged 58 wins a season in his previous job, who is as kind and decent as they come. Nor does it seem fair to call for the head of a coach who, some would say, helped resurrect this franchise and made the Knicks relevant again. But when players are devoid of respect for a coach's basketball acumen, when the opposition laughs over the transparency of his game plan -- so much so that D'Antoni's players intimated they had instituted their own changes at halftime of a close-out game -- the need for a change simply cannot be denied.
The rare display of heart and guts the Knicks exhibited in the second half of Sunday's Game 4 didn't happen just because they started hitting shots and the Celtics suddenly forgot how to defend them. "We got tired of the way things were going," one player explained in the wee hours of Sunday night, long after everyone had departed from the Garden.

"We walked in at halftime and said 'We can't go out this way.' We were pretty ticked off, especially at us not seeming to have any answers scheme-wise. We knew Boston knew everything we were going to do, how we were going to do it, so we needed to do something differently. We just couldn't keep going the way we were going."

As coach of the Knicks, D'Antoni deserves credit for inserting Anthony Carter into the game, allowing him to defend Rajon Rondo. He also deserves credit for allowing the team to go zone on occasion, for switching on shooters Ray Allen and Paul Pierce, with Carter serving as the catalyst. But if D'Antoni deserves credit for allowing those things to take place, he also harbors culpability for going a full game-and-a-half without a true point guard on the floor, for making little to no adjustments, for leaving the players to essentially decide for themselves at halftime Sunday that swinging back wouldn't entail just jacking up 3s inside of 10 seconds.

Notwithstanding the tremendous effort displayed in Games 1 and 2, the New York Knicks cannot play defense, folks! Primarily because schematically it's never important, nor has it ever been a priority in D'Antoni's mind.
The same coach who's being paid $6 million per season here was out in Phoenix because he would not heed former Suns executive Steve Kerr's advice that he simply couldn't win a championship with his system. Fast-forward to three full seasons later and nothing has changed.

There are high pick-and-rolls. There's Amare Stoudemire coming from the corner, getting the ball near the elbow, with everyone and their grandmother knowing that's exactly what is going to occur. Or there's Stoudemire coming from the low block to set screens -- except everyone knows he's getting the ball and that he's not going to set a screen. And intertwined with it all is the arrival of Carmelo Anthony, assigned to doing pretty much the same thing.

"Coach knows offense," one player explained. "It would be nice to set plays, control pace and not jack up shots just because you're open. But that's what Coach does. You could live with it if we played defense. But obviously, we haven't done that much. Good, bad or otherwise, all I can say is that I've never seen anything like this."

Who has?

What team has a 6-foot-9, 230-pound player like Shawne Williams assigned to stand around and shoot 3s? What team has an athlete like Bill Walker, who's 6-6, 220, programmed to do the same? How can such a haphazard, frenetic brand of basketball -- you constantly hear D'Antoni screaming at players to shoot whenever open, no matter how much time is on the shot clock -- be permitted to continue when your $100 million franchise player just completed his ninth season? When Anthony, your other franchise player, just completed his eighth season? When both are signed for more than $80 million apiece over the next four seasons, yet based on the fatigue and injuries, neither looked as if he was physically conditioned to go another game in this series?

Just as important, what kind of players will you draft if this system remains in place? Knowing D'Antoni won't play guys who don't fit in?
The New York Knicks need a coach -- not a system. Coaches smirk at the luxury of preparing a game plan against it. Even folks like Charles Barkley have characterized D'Antoni's refusal to recognize the futility of his ways as "pure stubbornness."

This city will have plenty of time to debate the future of Donnie Walsh as the president of the franchise, and whether he should stay so he can hire former St. John's star and present ESPN/ABC analyst Mark Jackson -- or whether MSG chairman James Dolan should let Walsh go and offer the coaching job and all of the basketball operations to a man in the last year of his deal, who just finished beating up on the Knicks: Celtics coach Doc Rivers.

What's not open for debate is that it's time for D'Antoni to go.

Lest we want Amare and Melo to expire a helluva lot quicker than their contracts will.

http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/n...hen&id=6425665

I don't like SAS but I agree with him.
D'Antoni has to go.

[Draz]

He has to go. We need a change, if this NY Franchise team wants to improve, it starts with him going. I'm sorry, D'Antoni needs to get going, he can get hired to another team.

[Scoooter]

I didn't read the whole article, but this jumped out at me:

What team has a 6-foot-9, 230-pound player like Shawne Williams assigned to stand around and shoot 3s? What team has an athlete like Bill Walker, who's 6-6, 220, programmed to do the same?

That's all they can do. That's the only thing they are capable of doing somewhat competently. Well, actually, Bill Walker can also get into the lane and commit an offensive foul. He's versatile like that.

Let's not pretend that Stephen A. Smith has ever actually known what he's talking about.

[knickscity]

Yeah what the **** was up with Ronny Turiaf this season? Was he always this fragile? I like the guy, his D, his energy, his beard. But spraining your knee every 20 minutes is not helpful.

His will is bigger than his heart, literally.

He has always been in the 20 or so minute range because of his heart, he just can't really go beyond that.

He is a good guy, but not piece I'd build a championship with.

Not dependable enough for me.

[Scoooter]

I'd be fine with him as a backup center. Especially behind Dwight.

[franchize]

So Scooter for the record...You think Mike D'Antoni is a good coach and should stay?Furthermore,do you think he's more capable of being our long term solution to mold this talented foundation into a championship team provided we get solid role players?

[Scoooter]

So Scooter for the record...You think Mike D'Antoni is a good coach and should stay?Furthermore,do you think he's more capable of being our long term solution to mold this talented foundation into a championship team provided we get solid role players?

He's not a great coach, but he's not terrible. They did get to the playoffs for the first time in however long. I think he averaged 50+ wins when he was in Phoenix. There's was an article that said he's had something like 63 different players on the roster since he's been in NY. Brand new team to start the season, brand new team at the deadline. Some of our starters (regardless of what rotations he's using) wouldn't even make a lot of rosters in the league. They were still competitive with the Celtics for a few games, and he could only get one of his "Big 3" (really a Big 2) to show up at a time.

I think he should get next season to see what's up. I'd like to see a good defensive assistant hired a la Mike Brown or Lawrence Frank or Tom Thibadeaux (although obviously the latter two are unavailable), along with some good defensive players to cover for the Big Two. Chauncey needs to be replaced with a real point guard, which the Knicks don't have (except for Anthony Carter - and it's no coincidence that team has looked it's best post-trade with Carter dishing). Some decent-to-good big men (should have kept Mozgov ). Lot's of big men. Legit 6'10"+, none of this Shelden Williams 6'8" center bullshit.

We'll know more about what to do long term (although I don't see Amar'e's knees or Melo's gut holding up or in for more than three or four seasons, so define "long") after next season. How much success they have, where they improve, what they need, what players they bring in, etc.

[franchize]

You say we shoulda kept Mozgov but Mozgov had about as many DNP-Coach's Decisions as he had points.My biggest problem with your defense of D'Antoni is when you act like he isn't part of the reason why the roster is the way it is.He doesn't want defensive players.He wants bums like Jared Jeffries.

My question to you is,what have you seen to make you believe a Mike D'Antoni coached team can do anything beside win a lot of games in the regular season and ultimately fail in the playoffs because they don't play D? Why prolong the inevitable?You have to play defense to win championships and he doesn't care about defense.Therefore,we won't win a championship under him.It's like a simple equation.Remember probability in JHS p if then q lmao

[franchize]

You say we shoulda kept Mozgov but Mozgov had about as many DNP-Coach's Decisions as he had points.My biggest problem with your defense of D'Antoni is when you act like he isn't part of the reason why the roster is the way it is.He doesn't want defensive players.He wants bums like Jared Jeffries.

My question to you is,what have you seen to make you believe a Mike D'Antoni coached team can do anything beside win a lot of games in the regular season and ultimately fail in the playoffs because they don't play D? Why prolong the inevitable?You have to play defense to win championships and he doesn't care about defense.Therefore,we won't win a championship under him.It's like a simple equation.Remember probability in JHS p if then q lmao

[knickscity]

I think he is a good coach, but needs higher quality assistants, who can take control of certain aspects of the entire coaching, most notably... defense.

Of course if someone better was available, he'd get the boot ASAP.