Melo isoed as much as he liked in NY back in D'Antoni's days. D'Antoni does not have the credibility to confront his star player and take the ball out of his hands.
Read my prior post which is 2 above yours. The D'Antoni Suns actually ISO'd more (12%) than the Rockets do (9.4%). ISO is one of Harden's strength's so he's not going to stop running ISO. D'Antoni's whole philosophy is to take shots that the defense is not prepared to defend. One way to do that is to take quick shots, another is ball movement or it could be as simple as having an alternate offensive weapon. If we had another offensive player that forced teams to account for them then that opens things up for Harden. If we had a player that could force opposing defenses to rotate in order to defend them then one quick pass to Harden would put him in a situation to go 1-on-1 rather than 1 on 3. It's what Harden does for his teammates today, he draws the defense and gets open shots for his teammates. The problem is that it's one way , we don't have anyone that opposing defenses have to account for to free up Harden. That means that teams are free to load up to stop Harden. Really that's the same thing that GS does. Teams could load up to stop Curry and he'd have much more difficulty getting shots but they have enough weapons to make that impossible. Every team knows that they need to account for Curry at all times but GS has all those other weapons and the ball starts moving and Thompson is running off screens and the defense starts scrambling to adjust and eventually Curry gets some daylight and that's all he needs. That approach works for GS skillset but most teams don't have that many weapons. Miami did it differently with Wade and Lebron. Both of them are great ISO players but it was hard to load up for either of them because when you did the other guy was waiting, 1 pass away from being 1-on-1. That's a different approach for a team with different skillsets. As different as the GS and Miami offenses were what they both had in common was they were very good at preventing the defenses from being able to load up to stop their strengths. If D'Antoni is hired then he'll try and find ways to accomplish the same type of thing based on the strength's of the players on the roster next season. What he won't do is to try and force the team to play a style that doesn't play to it's stengths. Here's D'Antoni's quotes regarding the Knicks with Carmelo and Billups. “Really, there’s all kinds of different ways you can play it, and we’re going to try to maximize just what the players do.” “We’re always going to be a little bit of an iso, one-on-one kind of a team, which, to be honest with you, is pretty good,” D’Antoni said, a declaration that would have made jaws drop in Phoenix. He followed with some important qualifiers: that the Knicks cannot “totally fall into” a one-on-one game, that the ball still needs to move, that the floor should be spaced and that the scoring should be shared. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/sports/basketball/04knicks.html?_r=0 If hired, D'Antoni would build the offense around the skills of his roster and find ways to prevent opposing defenses for being able to load up to stop what we are doing. That's always been his premise and he's gone about doing that differently in Phoenix, NY and LA. Overall it's a sound philosophy but you still have to have the weapons to make it happen. I'd assume that D'Antoni would want another offensive option here to help take the pressure off of Harden. If D'Antoni comes here, whatever he implements is going to include ISO.
You really dont James Harden...if you think ISO ball dies... DAntoni (assuming he is the official head coach) will have the same issues he had with Carmelo: How to make a young kid buy into his system of offense. IMO the Rockets (Morey) must have gotten an ALPHA head coach to compensate for someone like James Harden. He had to be kept in check. Too bad he got trumped by an owner that has shown that he has lost touch.
Harden will not respect D'antonio and will continue to do what he thinks is best. The defense will suck. And this team will again be a .500 team. But the offense will be more fun to watch!!!
Solid post bro...one thought to add is that Harden has gotten used to making decisions at the end of the shot clock. He is showing his true colors as a ball stopping guard. He MUST adjust...or DAntoni's tenure is going to be as long as JBB's
D'Antoni doesn't want Harden to stop running ISO. Read the quotes from the two articles I posted earlier in the thread. D'Antoni or any good coach is going to play to their star's strengths. ISO is one of Harden's strengths so he'll continue to ISO. What D'Antoni will do is to try to put Harden in better (less predictable) situations where it's harder for opposing defenses to load up to stop him. If we can create 1-on-1 situations for Harden his ISOs may even go up but that's what D'Antoni wants, to put his best players in the best situations to be successful. D'Antoni didn't try to stop Carmelo from running ISO, he didn't try to stop Kobe from running ISO and he wouldn't want Harden to stop running ISO. He's all about playing to his players strength. Will it work? I don't know, no matter how innovative you are and how sound your strategy, you still have to have the talent to execute the plan. I'm not crazy about hiring D'Antoni but I'm also not going to think that he's going to try and replicate the Nash Suns and predict doom. Bottom line is that much of our fortunes the next couple of years will depend on the talent level of the roster.
If he can get James to move without the ball, I'll get on his bandwagon. And if Hollins makes James run back on transition, I'll get on his. I don't even care about his iso (that's actually a strength when you need a bucket), or that he allows back cuts sometimes, but him standing there without the ball and not running back after a missed 3 drives me NUTS.
I understand that the perception is that Harden holds the ball and dribbles a ton and runs the shot clock down to the end but if you look at the actual number, that isn't true. As a team we shoot a total of 5.9 shots per game with the shot clock between 0-4. That's 14th in the league, pretty much middle of the pack. For comparision, the Spurs shoot 6.8, Cleveland 7.3 and Toronto 8.2. Golden State is the second lowest in the league at 3.5 shots per game. The fact is that there's only a spread of 5.8 shots between the best and worst in the league. Nobody really shoots that many shots per game really late in the shot clock. If you look at Harden's time of possession per game, avg seconds per touch and average dribbles per touch you'll see that he's in 15-25 range compared to the other primary ball handlers in the league. Chris Paul dominates the ball and dribbles much more than Harden and he's considered the best floor general in the league. My opinion is that our issue is more a matter of predictability. Teams know that we don't have enough additional weapons to make them pay for selling out on defense to stop Harden. We consistently see defenses keep 2 big men in the paint to prevent Harden from driving. That leaves some of our players open but we can't take advantage of it and because of that teams continue to play us that way.
Jason Friedman interviewing Chris Finch rom the previous season, I believe: http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/offensive Excerpt follows, but the entire article is a good read : ___________________________________
But CP3 is one of the best PG's, not the best offensive SG the game ever saw. And yes, that's probably due to the lack of a competent PG, but CP3's stats are not making Harden's role in the current system any more palpable. And yep, I don't think that's Hardens fault, but more due to an atrocious system and a lack of a PG who can stand up to him. That makes James so incredible... even though the "system"is the most atrocious we ever had which should make anyone surprised most people here are still looking for more of the same (just add Durant and we will be fine????)... even with this disgusting predictable system where everyone knows it will be JH or a chuck from Beas/Brew, JH manages to get this team in the Play offs. But at the end of the day this is neither succesful or in any way appealing for a fan of basketball. So I agree.. it's not the ISO, it's the complete lack of anything resembling a good adaptable offensive system. Yes, we have high production, but when it's play off times teams trample us due to our predictability.
