He hasn't always been so positive. In the past he could be quite arrogant and would find a player to belittle endlessly. In the past he was a guy that was positive as long as everything was going well...... then things would go really well and he would become arrogant and suffer from hubris...... and everything would come crashing down and he couldn't keep it from spiraling out of control like great coaches could. I asked him about it in a far nicer way and he seemed to genuinely think about it and said that failure humbled it and his wife really made him learn to stay positive and not too high or low. The Rockets have really gotten the best version of MDA. Other than his throwing DM under the bus over DMO when he first got here...... he has been very straight forward to the press about his coworkers and team and hasn't weaseled out of blame. He still can lie, which he did with his "creative math" line at the press conference a few years ago, but that was a no win situation for him. I have gained a lot of respect for him as a man..... because his reputation around the league with assistant coaches and others wasn't that great going into the Rockets job. Maybe we give him the benefit of doubt and say he is more straight forward now because he has a GM and front office he can trust to be straight with him.
I did not realize D'Antoni was this way with Suns, Knicks and Lakers. Maybe that's why Jeannie Buss seems to have a vendetta against him. But the Coangelo's seemed to still love him. Nash and Stoudemire still love MDA. Kobe did too, specifically asking Lakers to hire him. Of course, Melo was not a fan. Are there other players who hated playing for D'Antoni due to his arrogance and former belittling style?
I do not doubt at all the Nash and Amare love MDA, as does Marion. There are a lot of players that enjoyed playing for MDA, but he has left behind a lot of baggage. As far as players that did not like playing for him....... I know that MDA bad mouthed and tried to destroy Nate Robinson's career. I don't know if he has ever publicly discussed it but there is zero love lost there. There also were other examples like Jalen Rose that publicly have spoken about MDA in a negative light.
I am glad they cleared the air. I did not know if it ever went public but MDA was nasty to Robinson.... it got to the point where he asked for a trade or release. MDA singled him out and called him stupid in front of his teammates in a meeting, or something like that. The Knicks MDA was not a very happy or gracious MDA.
As arrogant as D'Antoni may have been, Jackson was much much cockier. I have never heard D'Antoni disparage and disrespect anyone publically like Phil has done multiple times. https://heavy.com/sports/2020/02/phil-jackson-chicago-bulls-don-nelos-mike-dantoni/
Phil was not a gracious guy. He threw players under the bus. He never gave credit to his opponent. Some say he played the mind game. I think he just has a big ego. Same can be said about Pat Riley, in a different way.
Different when you haven't won anything opposed to if you have. Things are swept under the rug of you're really successful, many guys look the other way.
Shawn Marion hates MDA fwiw. I met Marion at a club in Chicago few years back when MDA first got hired and when I asked him what he thinks of MDA in Houston he flat out said he'll be fired in a year or two and said Houston wasn't gonna be **** with him.
These coaches never had much success without one or two all time greats on their teams. Coaching has its place in team success. But talent is still the main reason why teams win.
And we all know how acerbic and demeaning Bill Fitch was, yet we old Rockets fans still love this coach. More for what he did with Celtics and the lone finals appearance with the Twin Towers. In any event, MDA does not have this rep with the Rockets.
Why is Mike D'Antoni so hated? Strange that such a genteel figure would be the target of such ire. The league has moved to Mike D’Antoni, but the reactionary element has stayed right where it was, with MDA and his team. D’Antoni was right about offense before the analytics confirmed he was right. He’s still right about offense, and now almost the entire league looks like one of his teams. Look in the mirror. https://www.thedreamshake.com/2019/...o-remade-the-nba-mike-dantoni-houston-rockets
You'd still have to manage difficult personalities..... why is he named Zen master? I guess he brought buddhist ways and native american methods to calm everyone down.
”Mike was pretty much put in a difficult situation,” Jamison said. “There was no training camp where he could get a feel for guys. There was a breakdown of communication when we first got there. And throughout the season it was kind of up and down. “I don’t dislike Mike. I obviously respect him as a coach. In my eyes, one of the best offensive-minded coaches in the league. I just think he was put in a tough situation … but toward the end of the season you saw him kind of open up, and we started to have a relationship, and I kind of understood where he was coming from.” As Jamison says, it was tough for D’Antoni to get accustomed to his new players last year seeing as he didn’t have a training camp and was thrown in at the deep end. https://lakerholicz.com/lakers-news...ation-with-the-players-last-season/2013/09/01
