Puff wrote:You really should have hired D'Antoni and made Malone an assistant at the most. Unfortunately I expect that you will regret this hire not too far down the line.
The damage Steve Kerr did to D'Antoni and the Suns organization is amazing. Since MDA left Phoenix the Suns have made the playoffs once and that was with Mike's players and his top assistant running the show, Gentry. Now Kerr is about to win an NBA championship without ever coaching an NBA game in his life or spending time as an assistant prior to this season. When the going got tough in Phoenix he cut and ran out of Phoenix. This year he gets paid $30 mil and steps into a ready made roster while hiring about 75 assistant coaches to do his job. He spent most of his time in San Diego with his family when he was GM of the Suns. Somehow that workload provided the knowledge to throw MDA under the bus and out of town.
Go Lebron
Hopefully Gentry has a clue and somehow gets MDA to join him in New Orleans. That roster is scary. I think MDA could have done special things with the Nuggets. I was actually looking forward to rooting for your team. The Suns are a train wreck. Thanks to Steve Kerr. Not much to root for these days and not much of a future.
Mike D'Antoni has had problems every where he has ever been outside of Phoenix when he had a stacked team and Steve Nash. You can blame it all on Steve Kerr if you like, but reality is he has not done crap without an MVP candidate in Nash running the team. Not to mention having 3 or 4 guys on the roster who deserved max money the entire time he was in Phoenix.
Also I cannot for the life of me figure out why everybody thinks D'Antoni is the perfect fit for this roster, the Nuggets were bottom 5 in the league for 3 point shooting, which means the Nuggets would have to get 3 point shooters. One of the guys the Nuggets want to build around is a 6'11" 280lb center that has a back to the basket game and is a very good defensive player. The other one used to play for D'Antoni is New York and was left standing in the corner shooting 3s, despite actually being at his best slashing to the rim and drawing fouls, that same player was pushing for Hunt to come back and never said a word about D'Antoni despite them both having close ties to Italy and D'Antoni reportedly having some sort of relationship to Gallo's father.
Half the team would have had to be changed out, the rumor was that D'Antoni wanted big money, and players that have played for him in the past did not make any mention anywhere of supporting him. I think he was a recipe for disaster with this current lineup, but since he used the SSOL offense everybody thinks he can coach any team that plays fast, but that is not his history at all. He needs a dominant PG, a bunch of shooters, pick and roll bigs, and no worry about slashing or playing defense. No thanks.