http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/2011/04/29/2011-04-29_knicks_seeking_more_d.html I wonder when they are planning on staging the intervention...
Of course D'Antoni will resist something like this because of his controlling nature. But he has to be real and admit his shortcomings if he wants to hang on to that job long-term. The ice is thinning.
wow. The bigger story here is it sounds like there is a chance Donnie Walsh might quit. The majority of the article is about that.
Go play with their Keep Him or Dump Him article. Fun to see what they think of everyone. I was shocked to see Melo's.
...it's really a shame that Dolan can't see how he makes things so much harder for his staff and players. D'Antoni and Walsh both are good at what they do and both must be thinking to themselves, "do I really want to be here?" and the answer should be undeniably "yes" but because Dolan likes to meddle in team affairs, he makes what should be a dream job, a nightmare.
I disagree. Playing defense is contagious. There are 3 other starting positions that could be defensive oriented players. D'Antoni is more of a defensive liability than Amare or Melo IMO.
Your best players set the tone for everyone else on the floor, whether it's practice time or defense during games. If Melo and Amare don't wake up, forget it. That said, D'Antoni is also a huge liability and isn't the right coach to light a fire under those guys to play both ends of the floor.
D'Antoni is a bad fit on defense... and on offense. They might be better off letting him go to Minnesota. List of likely sussesors to D'Antoni: Jeff Van Gundy Rick Adelman Nuff said.
That'd be huge. They need someone who can chew out those 2 stars they have that don't play any defense. D'Antoni can keep being the good guy.
...I would hate to see it, but I could see Adelman running a fairly successful old school Kings style offense with that roster with Billups/Melo and Amare playing the roles of Bibby/Weber. That being said, I absolutely agree with A_3PO that the leaders on that team have to set a tone of toughness and defense and those guys just don't have it building around Melo and Amare. If I'm Donnie Walsh, I'm offering Orlando Amare in a Dwight + bad contract for Amare straight up trade. NY can eat a bad contract if there is still a soft cap in the new CBA and Dwight + Melo is a FAR better pairing than Amare and him and for Orlando they would still be competitive AND might be able to dump Gil or Hedo.
Quickest way to improve the defense and toughness of the team? Sign Battier. I mean.. look at Memphis!
Not sure why people keep thinking that a defensive specialist assistant coach can mesh with an offensive genius head coach or vice versa. The two are not compatible, nor would they improve a team's record. The head coach relies upon offensive success to help his defense, and the assistant is just the opposite. They can't really coexist. Give it up already.
You need to have a certain temperament and flexibility to hand over one side of the court to an assistant coach. Very few coaches can do what Doc Rivers has so successfully done IMO. D'Antoni is definitely not one of them. He strikes me as having way too big of an ego to make something like this work.
The purpose of a defensive specialist assistant is to create a defensive structure to mesh with the current direction, not be a 2nd head coach.
