I fully Expect D'Antoni to come back next year. I truly need him to make some changes. I think he needs to do them DURING the year. I think the number 1 thing he has to do is expand his bench. I know it is asking an Old Dog to do new tricks but he absolutely has to use all the tools on the bench. He has to work more on Player Development. Hartenstein, Clark - These players should be implemented more this season I am not saying starters or even 6,7,8th men but they should be developed or moved IT burns my soul that Faried and House got no run in the last two games Esp House. He may not be AS AUTOMATIC as Green but he is decent enough and plays much better defense. . . . is as athletic and was not afriad to take it to the rack What other Suggestions beyond using and developing the bench can we offer D'Antoni IMO - Talent was not why we lost Weak Mentality is not why we lost Nascar does not use the same wheels/Tires for all 500 laps and win Rocket River
Actually run the offense that changed the league - SSOL. Let’s push the pace and try to get easy looks instead of walking the ball up the court every damn play. We are an old team, so doing this for 82 games would require us to use depth
I blame on Capela. Soft and sitting on money. Dude got smoked by his nemesis, or by his bully. He is the X Factor, if not for his no-shows the Rockets go to the next round. When you complain about some viral infection that is soft. You will never see big-time player complain about little stuff. I blame that should I go gold, or black hair guy.
He went from 7 seconds or less offense to a 23.7 seconds or less offense. He went from a pass-heavy Nash style to a dribble-heavy Francis style. He went from Gary Clark to Danuel House. He went from forcing players to fit his system to forcing his system to fit his players. And most importantly... ...he went from mustached Pringle's spokesman to clean shaven Landry's spokesman. What stayed the same are... ...hating Carmelo. ...emphasizing agile big men like Amare. ...focusing on point guard play. All of which still make sense on this team.
How much of Dantoni abandoning 7 seconds or less has to do with Harden and his non-adaptive style? I think Harden is incapable of playing that fast of a pace and is just catering towards Harden.
Interesting stats from last year that back up your take: https://bleacherreport.com/articles...making-and-iso-ball-awakening-of-mike-dantoni
Funny thing . . .. . The complaints about 7 seconds or less when the shots don't fall . . . .is about the same as now Rocket River
So, we go full "Moneyball" on the coach? "Well, I'm gonna play so-and-so." "No, you can't play so-and-so, I just traded him to the [Enter Name of Team Here]." "You traded so-and-so? You're killing this team." As far as the OP: 't'ain't gonna happen anyway. D'Antoni always does the same thing. If he has an inclination to expand his rotation in the playoffs, which every fiber of his being resists, he'll yank that player at the first dumb mistake and will never play the dude again.
He needs to go. What has D'Antoni done in the postseason every year he's been here? He's come up short in playoff series and he shortens his rotation and benches guys who contributed during the regular season. Why does anyone think a 4th year as head coach would end any differently? And it's not like he didn't have the same track record in Phoenix. At least a couple of those teams could've and arguably should've won the title. But he always wound up losing to the likes of the Spurs or Mavs. The Suns never could beat San Antonio until after he left. I don't think that's a coincidence.
I have defended him for his years here one cannot argue a 65 win season that said His inability or refusal to play all our players IMO LEGITIMATELY COST US THIS PASS SERIES Rocket River
Mike D'Antoni reminds me too much of George Karl. Both were great regular season coaches gifted with an abundance of talent who had systems that would overwhelm teams during the regular season, but in the playoffs when the game slows down, they couldn't adjust and would frequently underperform. And both had eerily similar bad luck in one particular year. Karl had a 64-win team that got to the Finals but had the misfortune of going up against the 72-win Bulls. D'Antoni had a 65-win team that had the misfortune of going up against the Durant Warriors in the WCF sans CP3 in the final 2 games. Under any other circumstances, both would have rings. But that doesn't mean that you overlook their flaws and pretend they won't continue to be issues in the future.
Yeah, it's clearly nonsense to suggest D'Antoni can't or won't adjust our offense. Just compare Phoenix to us. In fact, you can even compare his first season here, when we had the 3rd highest pace in the league. Here's a couple of things to note on potential changes PACE In 29 losses our pace was 98.5, in 53 wins our pace was 99.8. That's not really a big enough gap for me to ascribe significance, especially when you consider that pace of 99.8 would still be bottom 10 in the league. However our 9 games with the highest pace were all wins, and our average net rating in our 10 fastest games (9 W 1 L) was +16.7. I guess that tells you we weren't pushing the pace overall in most of our wins, but when we really increased the pace, we blasted opponents. However... DEFENSIVE REBOUNDING In those 10 games we played at our fastest, our defensive rebounding % was 76%. That would top the league. Instead, our average DREB% was a miserable 29th at 70%. What's more, in our 29 losses, that number was 65%. No other team averaged a lower DREB rate than we did in their losses. This is a big part of pace for me. When we're up against a halfcourt defense, James Harden and Chris Paul are excellent point guards who can break down a defensive system. However, like every team, we are at our best when we attack in transition. Getting stops and then grabbing defensive rebounds is obviously the key first step in being able to do that. If we want to increase our pace, it's not all of a sudden going to be just being crazy athletic and whipping the ball up the court and bombing early in the shot clock. It's going to be by being a better defensive rebounding team and being able to play in transition more. We were the 3rd best team in transition in terms of PPP. But we only had the 13th most transition possessions per game. Compare that to 16/17 when we were third in transition possessions, albeit less efficiently. PASSING AND ASSISTS There isn't much here to suggest we have been a better team when playing more ball movement. The 12 games we played with the most assists were all wins, but that doesn't really tell you much, because of course if guys are hitting shots, we are going to win, and we are racking up more assists in the process. In terms of passing, we only averaged 3 more passes in wins than in losses, and we were ranked 30th in both. All in all, I don't think our offense has to change all that much, we just have to give ourselves the opportunity to do the things we do well more often. Defensive rebounding has to be a priority this offseason. It was unacceptable that we never improved on that end, that the FO could never get the team more help, and that the coaches still allowed Clint and Nene to switch onto the ballhandler in the playoffs,leaving our best rebounders far away from the basket. A lot of the postmortem for this season will come down to whether we are trying to improve our offense, or whether we are trying to improve our chances of beating the Warriors. Because despite all the talk about ISOball and 3s. We've consistently had an elite regular season offense under Mike D'Antoni. Do we sacrifice some of that success, such as having CC at Center, for a squad more adapted to play the Warriors, whatever that means? At least with stuff like DREB and getting out in transition, that's pretty universal stuff. It's not like that is going to hinder us in a Warriors matchup, we can do that much better next year, whatever our priorities are.
Exactly correct, he can change because he already has dramatically. But Harden and CP3(at this age) cannot play in a 7 sec or less system. MDT was smart enough to realize that and that makes a good coach imo. He adjusted to his talent and it has worked very well but he's up against an all time dynasty that NO ONE has stopped. My only (and it's big) criticism is being a players coach he trusts and let's his vets get away with too much and it's those tiny details that can win or lose a game 6 or 7.
