http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/43774/nba-today-jalen-rose-luc-richard-mbah-a-moute <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5ctUdcIpJx0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> if this is the kind of D'Antoni we're getting, this team is royally screwed
Everyone keeps talking about how Steve Nash was the real coach of that Suns team. Don't get me wrong, I love Steve Nash. But, go back and consider who he was before playing for the Suns. Steve Nash was a fringe all-star with the Mavericks, a very good but not great player. He's a guy that Mark Cuban let walk so he could throw money at Erick Dampier. At the time, Nash was considered a better player, but it wasn't completely insane to think that Dampier might mean more to a team trying to hang with Shaq's Lakers. It wasn't until Nash was running D'Antoni's offense that he became MVP. Before that, he wasn't even a realistic candidate. There may be something to his offensive success. Jeremy Lin had his best run of success playing for D'Antoni while Carmelo was injured. It's an offense that can maximize the skills of a playmaking guard. James Harden fits this role perfectly. The roster may need to be re-tooled to add more quality shooting, but that's another story. The bright side to D'Antoni is that he has an offensive philosophy. The team will have a system and a structure, and the ball will move. It seemed liked McHale and JB too often were content to say "just go play" on offense. This led to a lot of the Harden iso plays, which probably were our best option, sadly. I'm hoping that Harden will make quicker decisions, move the ball, and then be given a second opportunity to create within the same possession.
I'm not a fan of D'Antoni, but Rose has no clue: 1. Rick Carlisle never coached Jalen Rose as a Head Coach. He was an assistant coach to LARRY BIRD who was the head coach. So first off, I'm not entirely sure I trust Jalen's recollection. Also Bird was known as being extremely detail oriented 2. Those were the late 90's Pacers. Good teams, but more ensemble teams trying to compete with late Jordan and Ewing and then Shaq's Lakers in the finals. When your team doesn't have the best player on the court, and you cannot take over the game. Then yes, you have to make sure everything else is precise. 3. The Suns team was in 2007, after those players had been together for multiple years. They had been together for a while and played the Spurs numerous times. Are they going to talk about every detail for a team they have played numerous times before and know very well? 4. So Game 1 was not a blow out. It was a 1 point game with less than 1 minute left in the game. However, Nash was out most of the last minute because a bloody nose. If Nash plays that entire minute, I'm fairly certain Suns win that game too.
Same goes for Curry. His career has taken a very Nash like turn. It's all about systems. D'Antoni's system is a decade old and now every team knows how to do it or stop it. We also have no system players for D'Anotni right now. Those Suns teams were stacked with talent from top to bottom. We have Harden. That's it. Capela and Harrell fit, no one else does. 7 seconds or less? It takes that long for Harden just to walk it up the floor. Harden is not the all out runner type of player. He's more T-Mac like in how he slowly walks up the court or slowly runs back in transition. We more than likely give Lin a really big contract to be the starting pg anyway. LE$ needs that china money back.
Somewhere Les is thinking he outsmarted both uninformed basketball fans and very informed basketball fans AT THE SAME TIME!!! ...and that pisses me off.
Yeah... not a big fan of D'Antoni... but keep in mind that in 2007 Jalen Rose was not in the rotation, and was upset he wasn't getting any minutes from D'Antoni.Rose didn't play a single minute in that series against the Spurs. Duncan averaged 26/13 in that series and Amare averaged 26/11. The Spurs went on to win the NBA title that season. The Suns went 61-21 that season... they were 13th in defense and 1st in offense.
