Duck's D'Antoni "Fit Grades"

[theanimal23]

Thabo could see a Boris Diaw type first season under D'Antoni next year if D'Antoni becomes coach.

I heard Greg Anthony make the comment this morning that one of the biggest criticisms of D'Antoni in Phoenix is he does not develop young players. Barbosa never took the next step and showed real point guard skills. Diaw plateued. This would be a huge problem for the Bulls as they will rely heavily on internal improvement if the team is going to go anywhere with the current group largely intact.

The negatives about D'Antoni: Shorter practices and does not emphasize defense.

We may be lucky in having players who naturally are defensive specialists as that is their M.O.

The shorter practices may kill our youth's development. But we have to also have faith in Pax's picks of Jibbyish players who have the work ethic. You hear about many guys working hard in the offseason or coming to practice early. I hope we have a strong core of assistants. I would love to bring in Paul Silas.

That said, D'Antoni is a player's coach, improves their confidence level, and if he does not make stupid rotation decisions, we should see improved play from guys such as Thabo and Tyrus. Two guys, who do not seem to succeed under the hard-ass coaches (Skiles).

Honestly, I view D'Antoni as a risk, but until we land that franchise changing talent, it's a risk I want to take. Because we need to leave the bottom of the barrel of offensive efficiency.

[Rerisen]

There has been some discussion on whether D'antoni simply likes to play short rotations as a philosophy or if the Suns personnel dictated that. But either way, getting the right coach and system for our players isn't going to mean much if Paxson doesn't tighten this roster considerably.

You could see disaster coming for Skiles even in the last couple preseasons, when he was trying to rotate 9 to 11 guys into minutes. It left you wondering if it was ever going to really shake down into a sensible rotation when the season started. It never did.

[DuckIII]

There has been some discussion on whether D'antoni simply likes to play short rotations as a philosophy or if the Suns personnel dictated that. But either way, getting the right coach and system for our players isn't going to mean much if Paxson doesn't tighten this roster considerably.

You could see disaster coming for Skiles even in the last couple preseasons, when he was trying to rotate 9 to 11 guys into minutes. It left you wondering if it was ever going to really shake down into a sensible rotation when the season started. It never did.

+1

[coldfish]

I agree Rerisen. It really takes a 3:1 trade. If you agree with Duck's grades (and I do for the most part), the idea would be to trade Nocioni, Hughes and the pick for one moderately useful player.

That would leave the rotation at:
Deng, Hinrich, Thabo, Gordon, Tyrus, Gooden, Noah, useful player.

8 guys works for me.

[bigjad66]

I personally think Gordon, Tyrus, Noah and Thabo would be perfect under D'A's offense.

But more importantly you are missing something.

Steve Nash.

Im not in the belief that anyone can sit behind the wheel and run the offense as crisp and clean as they ran it in PHX. Certainly not Kirk Hinrich. Kirk basically little to no creativity as a pg and thats where that offense thrives on. Nash at anytime in the game can create an open opportunity for his shooters. No one currently on this team can.

I think that this is a great point. One would have to consider a trade for TJ Ford if Dan Tony is hired. He would be a great fit for the up tempo system Dan Tony runs.

[Sarlonus]

I just wanted to give you guys some insight on some of the other things MD does. First, he does have plays for SG's. Back when the Suns had Joe Johnson, they had plays designed for him in the play book. Most of these plays required him to create shots for others though. He still has the plays and he used some of them with Grant Hill. He probably will do the same thing with Thabo.

Meanwhile, once we got Bell, MD developed a set play for him. About once per quarter he will run Bell off a bunch of screens (like Rip Hamilton style) and Bell will take the shot.

Also the shorter practices don't hinder player development. Instead they enhance it. The players get the pick what they work on after practices. MD stacks his bench with a bunch of player developers assistancts. For instance on the Suns we have Phil Weber who specialize as a shooting coach. We use to have Marc Iavaroni (before he became a head coach). He use to be the big man coach that taught STAT. We have Dan D'Antoni and he taught Barbosa how to be better. Basically the players have to take responsibility and go to the assistants for training.

I think MD would like to go to the Bulls. They have a lot of players that he likes. The Suns tried to draft Noah and Thabo. Meanwhile, there were rumors that he wanted trade for Gooden too (but they didn't like his contract). If you re-sign Duhon, he was another player MD targeted.

[StutterStep]

Excellent Thread, DuckIII!

[DuckIII]

Excellent Thread, DuckIII!

Thanks. You should do one on the Knicks board to follow up on the debate we just had over there.

[StutterStep]

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Thanks. You should do one on the Knicks board to follow up on the debate we just had over there.

I thought about it, but then I realized the majority of our posters are against D'Antoni, and they hate all of our players.

We'd get lots of immature responses instead of a civil debate.

[Magilla_Gorilla]

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I thought about it, but then I realized the majority of our posters are against D'Antoni, and they hate all of our players.

We'd get lots of immature responses instead of a civil debate.

lol...

[StutterStep]

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lol...

[theanimal23]

I'll keep it simple:

Guys who I think could excel with D'Antoni:
Hinrich
Sefo
Noah
Thomas

Neutral (at worst):
Deng
Gordon
Gooden

Will see a dip in their play:
Noce

It's true we need a consolidation trade. But I wonder who that player is. Another thing we must keep in mind, does this new player need to have a deal contingent for the 2010 plan?

If Hughes can fix his shot selection (too little too late), he would be a find role player under D'Antoni. But I don't see him playing intelligently.

[kyrv]

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I thought about it, but then I realized the majority of our posters are against D'Antoni, and they hate all of our players.

We'd get lots of immature responses instead of a civil debate.

I would have guessed that they would still be basking in the afterglow of the IT removal.

[85Bears]

If most of us agree that at least 4-5 of our players would EXCEl under DA, why is he not the consensus pick for a coach? WHo on our team would excel under Avery? I feel we saw the best this group can defend 2 years ago, we won 49 games and were ok. I would like to see if they can play some offense.

[DuckIII]

WHo on our team would excel under Avery? I feel we saw the best this group can defend 2 years ago, we won 49 games and were ok. I would like to see if they can play some offense.

I was going to do one of these for Avery Johnson as well, but given how time consuming it is, I decided to wait until at least it looked like Pax was going to interview him.

If most of us agree that at least 4-5 of our players would EXCEl under DA, why is he not the consensus pick for a coach?

I've stated in other threads why I think D'Antoni isn't a wise choice. But in the theme of this thread, let me give a quick team "fit" grade: + (or maybe even ++)

But that "+" comes with the caveat that it has a ceiling beneath however many plusses it takes to consistently and meaningfully contend for an NBA title. You can't blow off the half court game on both ends of the court and expect to see legitimate post-season success. I realize thats a bit of an old fashioned view, but to date no team has ever proven it to be unsound.

[coldfish]

I agree about D'Antoni and defense. His concept is better than nothing and has some merit. However, its never going to lock anyone down in the playoffs.

On offense, his half court game seems fine to me. The goal of any offense is to get a high yield shot. D'Antoni does that, repeatably. Just holding on to the ball for a longer period of time doesn't mean you are going to get more points out of the possession.

Just for kicks, I looked up how Phoenix has scored against SA in the playoffs.
This year 100.4p 46.1%fg
07 100.5p
05 104.0p

The Suns score just fine in the playoffs and do so in an efficient manner. They just give up too much.

[Hangtime84]

I'm confused why does D'Antoni have to play the same exact offense that he played in Phoenix.

His personal will be different.

I think its important to look at that list critically for its effect on the Bulls:
Diaw - Hawks castoff that suddenly became a multi-tool player
Bell - Mid level exception also ran, then he came to Phoenix
Nash - Good, but the deep pocketed Cuban let him go because he didn't look this good.
Joe Johnson - Celtics castoff
Barbosa - Who?

I thought MD wasn't good at player development

[StutterStep]

I went ahead and created the thread, and based on the early responses, it does not seem like they will debate the point of the thread:

http://realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=787005

[HINrichPolice]

There has been some discussion on whether D'antoni simply likes to play short rotations as a philosophy or if the Suns personnel dictated that. But either way, getting the right coach and system for our players isn't going to mean much if Paxson doesn't tighten this roster considerably.

You could see disaster coming for Skiles even in the last couple preseasons, when he was trying to rotate 9 to 11 guys into minutes. It left you wondering if it was ever going to really shake down into a sensible rotation when the season started. It never did.

I agree with this, except how do you explain the wild success of the 47 win team? I think one of the biggest reasons we won so many games and were competitive in just about all of them was the way in which the bench was utilized and depended upon. An expectation was set by the coaches and met by the players.

I understand the use of our bench that year more the exception than the norm, but it was part of the personality and culture of the team. Is the age of our players or # of years of experience or perhaps most importantly, the contract status of the players the main reason why such a culture cannot be achieved again?

The depth we have COULD be a good thing. However, players need to be invested into the idea and coaches have to be consistent with their execution of it. Perhaps it could be done again.

[Rerisen]

I think roles and our style of play were well defined on the 47 win team. For example, everyone knew the gameplan was to go to Eddy Curry early, but that in the 4th quarter he would more than likely be sitting down the stretch and the offense would turn over to Ben Gordon. Gordon's amazing 4th quarters alone, stand out as a big reason for many of the wins. Beyond that though, the role players were just that role players. Othella and AD might come in and get some burn every game, but there wasn't this widely vacillating minutes or fear that they would totally overwhelm the position like Ben Wallace and Joe Smith (and last year P.J) did, to the detriment of the young bigs.

Deng and Noc were also smaller contributers on offense than they are now. So it was easier to split up there minutes and have both do enough to matter. Now with what Noc is making and also his increased capacity to score, it just doesn't work to marginalize his play time in a game, or else he can easily become a much worse and useless player.

Pike and Griffin were both vets, and as I mentioned in another thread, this is a excellent place, at the end of the bench, where you want to 'go old'. Because these type of spot minutes guys know their role, as opposed to this year's team. You can't do that with young guys like Tyrus, Noah or Thabo and expect them to perform well.

The Bulls current roster has too many people deserving/expecting minutes that just are not there to be given.