Why did James Harden and Steve Nash have success with Mike Dantoni, but Kobe and Carmelo did not?

[NBA4Lyfe]

Keep in mind prior to dantoni coaching the rockets. Harden was seen as carmelo 2.0 and that the move to hire dantoni would clash with hardens style of play that he exhibited under kevin mchale

prior to dantoni coaching the rockets he had failed stints coaching carmelo in new york and kobe in los angeles. So what happened???

Also for those that say harden did not play the 7 seconds or less offense under mike dantoni.. YOU ARE WRONG, in 2017 the rockets averaged the 2nd fastest pace in the league under harden. They only dropped to bottom of the league after they acquired cp3 in 2018 and harden had unlocked his iso game

these are some of the headlines i found in 2016 prior to the rockets hiring dantoni. Their was a lot of skepticism that it would work

https://fansided.com/2016/05/20/5-reasons-houston-rockets-not-hire-mike-dantoni/2/

https://newarena.com/nba/houston-rockets-make-idiotic-move-hiring-mike-dantoni-as-head-coach/

https://hoopshabit.com/2016/05/27/houston-rockets-mike-dantoni-hire-mistake/

https://www.chron.com/sports/rockets/article/ESPN-pundit-on-Rockets-Mike-D-Antoni-hire-It-7949886.php

[NBA4Lyfe]

also for those that say harden was made by dantoni, that maybe true. But harden made 1st team all nba 2x under kevin mchale and even finished runner up to steph in 2015 for league mvp honors

[Lockdown504090]

Kobe has one of the most efficient season of his career with Mike. He didn’t have team success because his teams weren’t good. Ditto Melo

[Up-And-Coming]

Those Lakers were old and Dwight was not the same. Nash was pretty good but perpetually injured under D'Antoni while on the Lakers.

[Marcus_Shart]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and surmise that Nash and Harden had success with Pringles because they were both point guards. Despite being pigeonholed as a 2 early on because of his size and scoring prowess Harden has always had natural playmaking ability. OKC made that mistake as Harden was always a more natural facilitator than Russ, but they tried to make the shorter guy the point.

Kobe and Melo were both the epitome of Iso scorer. Dantoni had a better chance of Melo putting on a wig and "passing" as Lala than him passing the rock once he got into a jab step.

[kobe_vs_jordan]

Stars being successful has much more to do with roster construction than who is coaching.

[Sane]

It's simple. Everyone who goes 100% along with what he says does well, and that's been displayed from Harden and Nash all the way to players like Jeremy Lin, Shawn Marion, PJ Tucker, Eric Gordon and to some extent Amare who benefitted from playing the way MDA recommended.

The downside of playing for MDA is it seems to increase injuries, fatigue. He believes the least in load management and practice and I'm not sure the mix is working because there's a pattern of his teams fizzling out of the playoffs looking physically exhausted rather than tactically outmatched.

I'll say it a million times, there's no reason the Rockets featuring CP3 should take Durant's Warriors to 7 games. The rest of the league didn't end up taking 3 games from the Warriors in the playoffs IIRC.

Kobe and Melo did not want to play a different way than their way. MDA is not good at coaching what he views as an inferior way of playing. He's stubborn in that sense, but his style applied in a variety of ways has been highly successful in the NBA. There's at least a lot of merit to his tactical approach, the league has never stopped following his lead (except for the bizarro bubble title).

I think he deserves a title, probably no coach without a title deserves it more. He's made mistakes sure, but lesser coaches get titles more often.

[dk1115]

Didn't the Knicks win 50 under D'Antoni? Which would probably make it the most wins for the franchise since the mid 90s.

[sp6r=underrated]

Mike D. is a brilliant offensive-minded coach and one of the most important coaches in NBA history. But his value add as a coach only applies if you have true point guard skills. He doesn't really have a use for iso-forwards in his offense, ala Melo. Nor does his offense maximize wings who are at heart scorers, ala Kobe.

If your team is built around of those guys you should hire a different coach.

[SpreeChokeJob]

Carmelo wasn’t buying in. MDA wanted him to play PF to push the pace. He wanted Lin to run the plays. No way Melo was going to allow that. MDA resigned and Melo got everything he wanted in a power play. Everything had to run through him. He ruined any chance for the Knicks and his own career in the process.

[GregOden]

He does well on teams with free flowing offenses and players who can make and take volume 3s.

[rocketsfan100]

Harden is a legit all time great passer and playmaker the same with Nash. Dantoni offense requires guards to be a legit great decision maker as a playmaker.

[theforumblue]

dude got a one track mind and cant and wont adjust his offense to fit the personnel. caused a mutiny on the lakers.

[sjballer03]

Carmelo wasn’t buying in. MDA wanted him to play PF to push the pace. He wanted Lin to run the plays. No way Melo was going to allow that. MDA resigned and Melo got everything he wanted in a power play. Everything had to run through him. He ruined any chance for the Knicks and his own career in the process.

This would make for a much better documentary than whatever melo is planning.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Kobe has one of the most efficient season of his career with Mike. He didn’t have team success because his teams weren’t good. Ditto Melo

This. Kobe was great that season, he just had to carry too much since everyone was hurt that season and ultimate got hurt himself in the end.

The main problem was Dwight who refused to play in the system.

[heezyo2o]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and surmise that Nash and Harden had success with Pringles because they were both point guards. Despite being pigeonholed as a 2 early on because of his size and scoring prowess Harden has always had natural playmaking ability. OKC made that mistake as Harden was always a more natural facilitator than Russ, but they tried to make the shorter guy the point.

Kobe and Melo were both the epitome of Iso scorer. Dantoni had a better chance of Melo putting on a wig and "passing" as Lala than him passing the rock once he got into a jab step.

During parts of the season, Kobe was more a facilitator and Nash talked about he had to adjust to become more of a spot up shooter.

They tried everything on that team

[LarsV8]

Thats not really fair.

Harden was just better than Kobe, and Nash had way better teams.

[heezyo2o]

The Nash/dwight PnR could have been great, but nash was often injured and Dwight wanted to post up.

That Laker team didn't buy in, but at the same time D'antoni adjusted to his players in Houston. Dantoni despised ISO, but that's all the rockets did basically

[Memories]

Not at all a fair question considering many factors:

- Dantoni was hired after the first 8 or so games in the season. So no off-season, training camp, preseason, etc to help contruct the roster and plan ahead with the team as much as he could have.

- injuries galore from that 2013 team. Nash literally injured and out most of the season after the 2nd game of the season, Dwight with back problems, and the rest of the roster was really old. Kobe had a huge carry job he had to pull off to make the team work.

- the roster was not at all a typical Dantoni team. It didn’t have a lot of shooters or a lot of great defenders from almost every position like his Suns team did with guys like Raja Bell, Shawn Marion, Tim Thomas, Leonardo Barbosa, etc.

- Chemistry with Kobe and Dwight wasn’t great. Dwight wanted to act like a post up bigman despite not having the skills/repertoire to be such a player (when his most valuable trait was a pick and roll Center and looking for lobs/putbacks).

- Despite all that, most here probably either don’t remember, or were too young during that time, but despite everything I just said, the Lakers in the 2nd half of the season, were the hottest team in the league. And things finally started to click a bit. A lot of it thanks to Kobe’s practically herculean performances. Which unfortunately, also ended up costing him his career when the ridiculous amount of minutes he had to play to keep his team going, led to his torn Achilles injury.

We didn’t even get a chance to see that hot Lakers team go into the playoffs healthy, and who knows what could have happened? But obviously, we won’t now. But in the end, how much success did Nash and Harden REALLY have, when neither of which led to any championships. Heck, neither of them even had a Finals appearance. So, kind of a reach to call Nash and Harden’s time with Dantoni a “success” and Kobe’s a “failure” no?

[pr0wler]

It's simple. Everyone who goes 100% along with what he says does well, and that's been displayed from Harden and Nash all the way to players like Jeremy Lin, Shawn Marion, PJ Tucker, Eric Gordon and to some extent Amare who benefitted from playing the way MDA recommended.

The downside of playing for MDA is it seems to increase injuries, fatigue. He believes the least in load management and practice and I'm not sure the mix is working because there's a pattern of his teams fizzling out of the playoffs looking physically exhausted rather than tactically outmatched.

I'll say it a million times, there's no reason the Rockets featuring CP3 should take Durant's Warriors to 7 games. The rest of the league didn't end up taking 3 games from the Warriors in the playoffs IIRC.

Kobe and Melo did not want to play a different way than their way. MDA is not good at coaching what he views as an inferior way of playing. He's stubborn in that sense, but his style applied in a variety of ways has been highly successful in the NBA. There's at least a lot of merit to his tactical approach, the league has never stopped following his lead (except for the bizarro bubble title).

I think he deserves a title, probably no coach without a title deserves it more. He's made mistakes sure, but lesser coaches get titles more often.

Couldn't agree more. People always harp on D'antoni and the 2018 Rockets. In reality, they had no business even being in the contention with GSW based on talent. Every other team got absolutely annihilated by the KD Warriors HOU was the only team that didn't. Thanks in large part to D'antoni and Moreyball, which was laughed at at the time, is now being implemented in some form by a good majority of teams.

D'antoni is one of the greatest coaches to never win a title. Also probably the best and most innovative offensive coach of all-time. He'd have 5+ titles right now if he had the same roster as Steve Kerr.