How am I smearing MDA? His refusal to play rookies has been well documented. It's not like it came out of nowhere lol, his rep has been there since his PHX days. PHX Suns were famous for their 7-8 men rotation in the regular season and all the years that MDA was the coach Harden and the starters have all led the league in mins played. That's why people call him a regular season coach cuz he always goes for broke every single game and has 0 depth by the time playoffs arrived. Here is an article of Jordan Hill saying MDA doesn't play rookies. I guess he is smearing MDA too: https://nypost.com/2010/03/22/dantoni-i-dont-like-to-play-bad-rookies/ Reasoning doesn't substantiate anything, that's why you use reasoning in the first place (aka logical conclusions). If it is substantiated then there is no need to use reason you can just state the facts. BTW all of this is just reasoning as well, you don't have proof that MDA didn't play any role at all in Moreys decisions as well. I'm just saying from a GM's POV you'd get players the coach will play. That's the smart and logical thing to do, I mean Morey ran a system that MDA liked to play I'm guessing he took his HC into account when making personnel decisions. The only time he broke that rule is when Harden overruled him, like when they brought in Melo and WB. And he ended up firing Melo in like 1 week and resigned a year after WB came to the team.
I think part of that is that the Rox system is just so unrealistic and only works in a computer. In a computer, things like fatigue and variance don't really show if your average is 40% in the regular season the system assumes you will shoot that in the playoffs as well. But IRL we saw how almost all the vets shoot horrible in the Rox system, if its just 1 dude then you can chalk it up to coincidence but given everyone's 3 pt plummets drastically in the playoffs I think there is just something wrong with the play when it is translated from a computer to IRL. I agree with limiting the mid range shots but drawing the same play over and over again (the "T" formation where 3 dudes wait at the 3 pt line and Harden and WB massages the ball looking for an iso) just made them extremely predictable. I bet opponents spent all their prep time just studying how to defend that play and when they mastered it the Rox don't know what to do except give the ball to Harden and pray. Perhaps shooting that many 3s while playing 30 mins a night is just not sustainable. Shooting multiple 3s drains your stamina a lot more than mid range and layups and if you play switch all defense on top of that everyone should be playing 20 mins tops. Not to mention Rox were old AF, their stamina isn't what it used to be.
Do you even realize how young the 7 Seconds or Less Suns were? Only Nash was 30. All the other starters were 1st, 2nd or 3rd year players. Amare, Joe Johnson, Shawn Marion, Quentin Richardson, Leandro Barbosa, Boris Diaw were all early to mid twenties players under MDA. MDA played Jeremy Lin. He played Iman Shumpert, Clint Capela, Sam Dekker, Montrezl Harrell, Gary Clark and Danuel House. A few even became starters for Rockets. The real truth is that D'Antoni has had very few young players talented enough to carve out playing time on his last 3 HC stops. MDA trusts and plays his best players, that more often than not will be proven vets especially vets in their primes. But D'Antoni is not adverse to playing young players if those player are best players on his team, a la the Suns. Repeating an untruth ad nauseum "MDA never plays young players" does not make it more true. Not starting/playing enough minutes to players like Chinanu Onuaku, Zhou Qi, DeAnthony Melton (traded away before season), Gary Clark (starter mins), Danuel House (starter mins), Ben McLemore (starter mins) or Isaiah Hartenstein is hardly conclusive considering the talent disparity to the actual starters. And Jordan Hill as your rebuttal witness is interesting, considering he was a bust every team he went.
Morey lost players and even the ones he found MDT didn't play so what's your point? My point is clear, there is a silver lining have those two gone and Stones and Silas in their place. Young players might have a chance and we could develop a player. That though is exciting in a year full of disappointment.
as opposed to the numerous finals appearances and 'chips we've had the last few years... oh that's right...
To be fair, Morey/MDA had Harden in his prime. Morey is a great GM, but not without flaws. We'll see how Stone will do and how much freedom Tilman will give him. MDA is overrated, IMO. His two successful coaching tenures were Phoenix and Houston where he had two of the best offensive players of all time.
LOL Harden is STILL in his PRIME. You make it sound like MDA/Morey left 5 years ago instead of last month.
Huh? Morey/MDA did have Harden in his prime to achieve "never lower than 4th seed." What so funny about it?
he's had a lot of time since pistons season ended. let's hope he's been in the gym and comes back in peak physical condition. also just because someone has to say it... those landing mechanics on the dunks really need to be cleaned up. too many aggressive landings for me.
Harden IS still in his prime, not sure how I could make that clearer. It's not like Silas will have a past his prime Harden.
