[Feigen] D'Antoni emerges as front-runner for Rockets job

NY and LA were train wrecks with or without Mike D

 

D'Antoni is not a bad coach. He revolutionized the way offenses play in the NBA.

He was set up for failure in New York and Los Angeles.

 

seriously thought there was no way to screw this coaching hire..

Team needed defense..

Vogel
Joerger
JVG
Thibs

4 coaches that preach defense- Morey himself said they will make their coaching search prioritize on defense..

And the least defense guys is being hired lol- i thought this guys were some smart people..

 

I like Messina too but there is nothing that says he'll be a good NBA coach beside working under Popovic. I don't think coaching in Europe really translates over here when the stars multi-millions and are celebs and you get to stack teams with talent.

That too is a risk.

 

i would rather take that risk.. Why go back to a coach that has burned birdges- that has not been successful in the last years.

 

Lots of others have made these points here, but yeah, the bottom line is this...

Whether MDA is a great coach, or just a good coach is not the point.

The real crux of the matter is whether the Rockets can gather and surround Harden with the types of skilled players that running a fast, high powered offense requires.

Phoenix had the ultimate PG in Nash, he ran that whole show, and every time he wasn't on the floor, they struggled.

MDA and Nash needed everyone else on the team to be very good shooters, super quick and athletic, great slashers and finishers, and all very good ball handlers and defensive players. That's the only way that team succeeded.

We don't have anything even remotely close to a Steve Nash. We don't have a bunch of good shooters. We don't have enough great athletes who finish strong at the rim. And we don't have enough players with good ball handling skills.

Bottom line... we have 1 or 2 ingredients out of a recipe that requires like 8-10 ingredients. No matter which coach they choose... the Rockets have a lot more grocery shopping to do.

 

He "revolutionized" offense 10+ years ago. He was set up for failure because only piss poor organizations were willing to hire him since he left the Suns.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this team misses the playoffs entirely next season.

 

What about if they are trying to get David Blatt to join MDA as Associate coach- and also hire Lionel Hollins or some defense guy??

Would you guys be intrigued

 

the only way to ease a lot of these minds and rightfully so is to have a well qualified and respected defensive mind next to if in MDA is indeed hired. Other than that theres no way around it. The Rockets will continue to suck defensively and in the end will be no better than this past year.

 

no.
you could put freaking pop, carsile and thibs with JBB/mchale/mda as head coach and it wouldn't work. how about just get the right head coach for once

 

It's better. It's like having 2 head coaches.

 

Not to mention that those 'finalists' have all had their teams quit on them when they lost the locker room.

 

Yes, in order to be able to evaluate any candidate, we'd have to know who will be responsible for the offense and who will be responsible for the defense.

If JVG were to be hired then everyone would expect an assistant to be hired to run the offense. If D'Antoni is the hire then everyone expects an assistant to be hired to run the defense. Without knowing who that would be it's impossible to judge.

 

any ideas on some well known defensive minds out there at the moment that could be options? Also it seems a lot of the times the coaches that are hired bring on their own choice of assistants so I'm not sure here

 

I don't even care whether D'Antoni is good at offense or whatever assistants we are going to hire.

What we lacked this past season was not the Xs and Os offensive schemes, although it might help a bit. What we lacked was leadership which caused every player to under-perform on both ends. The head coach is supposed to be the leader and who set the team culture. This is especially true when your star player isn't one who can do that.

D'Antoni is no leader.

 

Well said I am willing to go further and say, D'antoni is a Dwert of coaches

He is all smile and little substance, a lesser Dwert without athleticism in terms of coaching

 

The name that keeps being mentioned is Jeff Bzdelik from the Grizzlies.

Other than that I'd just be guessing. I never even considered D'Antoni as a candidate so no reason to think that I'd be any more clued in on who they will bring in to run the defense.

 

if it's indeed mda, i am definitely done as a fan of the rockets. will not watch games, or post on this wonderful fan site.

until they get things right.