Did D'Antoni get a fair shake? Let's look at the starters for Knicks/Lakers teams

Okay....... but that isn't what they will get.

It will be a coaching saying "I will do my job and will do yours."

Also, concerning Morey coaching.... he didn't tell McHale what rotation to use or even insist he rely on advanced stats provided by the front office. I DO agree that the Rockets were lacking a coach that was as bright as the GM and could bring another perspective to the table and challenge the GM.

The perfect coach to do that, is the coach Morey REALLY wanted.... Carlisle.

If D'Antoni can reign in his ego, then the "smarts" of the organization can increase.... but even D'Antoni isn't a traditional coach with structure, which is a HUGE weakness of the Rockets organization.

 

It does not matter that this team struggled defensively and did well offensively last season.

The only significant holdover from last season is James Harden. Everyone else is minimally important and you can shape this how you please.

There's no guarantee that we would continue to be a very good offensive team. To bring in a defensive coach in based on the fact that in the past with different players and a different staff we were defensively poor is ridiculous.

All that matters is we have James Harden and he is going to be, for the most part, who he has been. It doesn't take a defensive coach to make Harden play defense, it takes a coach with the ability to motivate to get Harden to play defense. That could be anyone, it could be an assistant and it could even be another player. Hell, it could be that Harden just does it himself based on the humiliation this past season.

If D'Antoni will turn us into a top 3 offense that is an objective WIN in the coaching hire. We're all worried about his defense. Even if we happened to be the best defensive team in the world last season, this new team was going to start almost from scratch.

Last season's team is done, it's gone. We have James Harden and maybe a couple of good pieces. Everyone else is up for sale, and everything else is cap space. We will NOT get worse defensively with a highly regarded guy like Bzdelik at the helm. He won't be worse than JB, and I don't see how McHale is a better defensive strategist than D'Antoni. They both suck at that facet of coaching.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Mike D'Antoni's offensive and defensive rating throughout his coaching career. (only coached 42 gms in 11-12) <a href="https://t.co/rzA7vkJXpb">pic.twitter.com/rzA7vkJXpb</a></p>&mdash; Cameron Stewart (@ThatManCam) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThatManCam/status/735968891789291520">May 26, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

Yeah, and the GM is as stubborn as the coach. So that's not going to happen. They will challenge each other and that's fine.

Any ways it's kind of silly to predict how people will get along personally. We really don't know that.

Kobe was a jerk and Michael was too. Phil Jackson isn't the easiest guy to get along with. Pop has had the attitude of a grumpy old man since forever. Was the GM of the Spurs and decided to do things himself. A GM and coach clashing is pretty common.

We really have no idea how this will work out personality wise. Also though MDA does have structure and a system. He just has to get everyone to buy into it.

 

D'Antoni himself is competent, the problem is that the Rockets are literally at the tipping point between either sliding back into obscurity (see the Post-Yao-pre-Harden era) or moving back into the upper ranks.

They're exactly at the middle - sitting at .500 and the 8th seed, 8th best offense, 23rd best defense, point differential of 0.1 - they are rest on the fulcrum of relevance and irrelevance.

They stand at the edge of a steep cliff. Does D'Antoni tip them over into the chasm? Not necessarily himself but the departures that may follow might.

 

Not saying you think this but anyone who thinks Harden is the next Melo doesn't know much about basketball. There games are nothing alike and Hardens last 4 years are better than Carmelo's best season.

Melo has never had a PER of 25 or higher... Never in his 13 years in the league he's never had a TS% of 60 and never avg 5+ assists. Harden has done the PER over 25 the last 2 seasons he's been 60% ts the last 5 years ( I know he was 59.8 this yr) and he's been over 5 assists the last 4 years as well as his normal 25+ ppg and 5+ rebounds.

Harden is just flat out a lot better player than melo is and has ever been.

I'm not an MDA fan but I also don't think he's as bad as many think. None of the assistents we could have hired would have don't better than MDA will do over the next 2-3 years. We needed a guy who can come in a make Harden play smarter team ball and maximize all his unworldly offensive talent, that shoud happen. The D is what scares me but harden and The team manned a top 6 D less than 18 months ago with no dwight Howard so the abilty with him and the team is there and that's all we can hope for at the moment.

This hire was about Harden maximizing his offesne putting up video game numbers and if it turns into a 55 win season then he's back in the top 3 mvp convo again easily. If that happens outside of winning a chip this is the best way to insure that harden resigns with us in 2 years.

Trust me that's les and Morey number one priority, locking up harden for another 5 years. They want to hang his jersey up and build a statue for him.

 

Thibs as HC and D'Antoni as Asst Coach would have been the BEST solution IMO. Les get's his PHX innovator and Daryl gets the best D coach in the game. And both worked together famously under Coach K.

But Rockets were in turmoil and lacked a real plan or direction, they should have had their chips in place as soon as McHale was fired. Instead they say one thing, do another creating at least the illusion of an organization that is disoriented, discombobulated and lacks a single unified vision.

 

Another offensive sets breakdown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GezaMdVkJLs

 

Thanks for the link Joe!

After watching this I really think J Smoove could flourish in a D'Antoni offense. Same with D-Mo (I'm praying for that he returns and is healthy) and Beasley.

What to do y'all think?

 

D'Antoni isn't a very structured coach or disciplinarian.

Also, the owner decides who has power within the organization.

 

I think most rockets fan are just upset we didn't even interview the best candidates.

thibs
vogel
JVG
joerger

 

We never would have got Thibs when Minny offered everything. Even if we jumped in on it.

Disagree there. I look at those Phoenix teams and the last thing I think is "This team has no structure." disciplinarian? Well depends on how you look at it.

People seem to equate that to yelling and screaming and making players run suicides but I'd disagree with that too. Seeing as how the issue he had with two of his last star players were him clashing with them trying to do what he wanted them to do.

In fact the "Horror" stories of MDA pulling a player to the side and saying "We don't do that here, we play fast and let them score that so we can get back up the court." is a structure and a plan.

Guys on MDA coached team has roles. It may look like fastbreak chaos but it's not.

That's also why Point differential is a stat more important than offense or defense since it takes into account pace. Some teams just play the game faster or slower.

 

thibs - hired while Rockets were still in the playoffs
JVG - hasn't coached in 9+ years
joerger - pass
vogel - should have at a minimum interviewed him

 

James can run the mid- and high-p&r better than Steve Nash??? What on the ****ing planet earth are you talking about? Best in the NBA today at mid p&r is still Toney Parker and Nash was even better than him. Literally an all-time great at screen and roll.

Harden is good at it, no doubt, but let's not get carried away here...

 

I understand that, but if Rockets had hired Thibs immediately after firing McHale it would have been a different story.

The JBB era was a frackin waste of an opportunity. This was a strategic mistake of the highest order and it allowed other teams to devise a Morey-like offer to Thibs after the regular season ended.

Rockets had a head start on the Thibs sweepstakes but Les had no intention of playing slower paced ball. If he hated watching JVG, can only imagine what he thought of Thibs. And Morey's infatuation with Carlisle was just as much pie in the sky, his system is even more rigid than Thibs'.

 

I think the big key is obviously whatever relationship he can establish with Harden and whether his system will bring out the best in Harden. From there, it becomes a question of whether More can complement him with enough pieces for the team to be successful. That's the same question we would have with any coach. I think the difference is that MDA has a well documented history with star level players. No one knows the particulars of what went down and who was to blame. We also don't know if he's learned anything from those encounters.

 

Sure those Knicks/Teams had bad rosters but there's a decent shot our roster won't be much better.

More troubling than the makeup of his rosters is the fact that he lost the locker room at BOTH stops. A good coach should be able to smooth out conflict rather than exacerbate it. There's a fair chance our locker room won't be the most stable place next season and those are the situations when he's imploded. He can win under ideal circumstances but he has proven to be nothing other than a disaster in anything short of that.

 

So it's been 8 years since he's had an offense and defense that was in the top 20 in the same season? Regardless of roster, that's pretty bad.

 

The funny thing about most coaches that actually take what they're given is that they end up having around a 50-55% winning percentage or less. I'm talking about when you look at the coaches with the most games coached. For example, if you took the coaches with the 50 most games coached and ranked them by winning percentage, D'Antoni would end up being around 33. Rudy T would be around 18. If you look closer, however, the winning percentage difference between the 2 is only about 4%. If you look at the top of that list, aka, the 60% and 70% club, you'll find Phil Jackson, Billy Cunningham, Greg Popovich, KC Jones, Red Auerbach, Pat Reily, Tommy Heinsohn, Jerry Sloan, and Stan Van Gundy. That's the top 10 winning percentage coaches on the list of 50 coaches with the most wins. Notice anything? Damn near all of them coached some mega-team, dynasty, or just had great teams they ran with. The coaches that have lower winning percentages on that list usually had table scraps, average teams, or made something out of nothing for a few seasons.

 

Signed J.B. Bickerstaff