Buzz in coaching circles that Mike D'Antoni will be on Suns' list if/when that job comes open

[Jarlaxle0204]

I like D'Anotni but I don't know if this is the right fit. He's never been known as a coach that grooms new players. His rotations were always pretty short and we never developed anyone under him. I don't hate it but would rather someone like JVG. I guess beggars can't be choosers though.

[RaisingArizona]

[letsgosuns]

Mike D'antoni has never won a playoff game without Steve Nash leading the team. He was exposed so much after he left the Suns. If he could not win a championship with those incredibly talented Suns teams, I doubt he will win one with whatever players the Suns have next year. Steve Nash was SSOL. All D'antoni did was give him the ball and say go. Bringing him back would be living in the past. Apparently Sarver likes that though. We all know he hates social media. Maybe he wants to recapture memories of his time owning the Suns prior to social media taking over the internet.

[RaisingArizona]

Bring back the band, I say.

[Puff]

Mike D'antoni has never won a playoff game without Steve Nash leading the team. He was exposed so much after he left the Suns. If he could not win a championship with those incredibly talented Suns teams, I doubt he will win one with whatever players the Suns have next year. Steve Nash was SSOL. All D'antoni did was give him the ball and say go. Bringing him back would be living in the past. Apparently Sarver likes that though. We all know he hates social media. Maybe he wants to recapture memories of his time owning the Suns prior to social media taking over the internet.

Stop it.

You usually have your own thoughts. This in nonsense.

He did a good job with what he had in both New York and LA. They were worse before he got there. He made them both better than the talent he had available.

Steve Nash has the same number of championships as MDA.

Steve Nash has 2 MVP's thanks to MDA.

Steve Nash will go into the hall of fame thanks to MDA.

Steve Nash wanted MDA in LA.

Steve Nash had a choice whom to sit with at his innaguration into the ring of Honor. He Chose Mike D'Antoni.

Bottom line they were fantastic together and unlike other coaches MDA gave Nash all the credit he deserved and he never through any players under the bus unless your name is Carmelo Anthony.

Bottom line we lost the Olympics when Larry Brown and Greg Popovich coached the US team. The US has won the last two with Coach K and MDA on the bench.

Bottom line, MDA won multiple championships in Europe.

Bottom line Nash and the rest of the 7 SOL gang had their own mutiny on the bounty when he was no longer their coach and the great Steve Kerr brought in Terry Porter to teach them how to play defense.

Bottom line - MDA deserves bettter. I hope he lands somewhere else so you schmucks can continue to watch the crap that is now called Phoenix Suns basketball. Besides Sarver is not smart enough to hire him and I doubt that MDA wants to ever work for him again. It isn't going to happen and I expect it is just a minor distraction to take our minds off the current state of our team.

You all can be thankful that you will not have to put up with that horrible coach, again. All those positive articles, all those national TV appearance all those playoff games. Damn it was boring.

The thought of Jeff Van Gundy makes me want to vomit. The good thing is that he will never ever take this job as well.

I have no clue who will want to work for numbnuts. I really think we are stuck with Hornacek.

[saintEscaton]

As long as it provides some entertainment value I'm all for it

[letsgosuns]

People can love D'antoni all they want. I do not. No interest in him coming back to Phoenix.

[ImNotMcDiSwear]

I love me some Mikey D.

[Superhuman]

It would be interesting. For a rebuilding/tanking team, I wouldn't mind it. He could unleash the potential of Booker and Warren. He's not known as a coach that's developed players, but I'd like to see what he could do with our young guns.

Although if we were a team contending for a championship or the playoffs for that matter, I wouldn't want him as a head coach.

[thamadkant]

I think most fans here will get sick of losing with Dantoni also.


Im fine in bringing him in as a offensive coordinator assistant coach. But need a better defensive motivator as head coach. Someone who will yank out players for playing one end of the court only.

[saintEscaton]

We also don't have All-NBA defenders like Raja/Marion to pick up slack for the rest of the team .Instead we will have an athletically limited wing duo of Booker/Warren who are complete liabilities on the other end (which is ok but don't expect him to do anything but push the pace and orchestrate organized chaos. Maybe we'l get back to putting up near 100 PPG but still give up more than we get). I just don't think we have the right personnel for him to completely implement his system. But he has done a bang up job in Philly so far with a roster that is antithetical to his coaching philosophy. Ish is good enough for him even though they are still a slow non-transition team with a roster of redundant bigs who cannot co-exist

[LukasBMW]

D'Antoni did lots of thing well, but a few moves he made as our head coach cost us the championship

- He only used short rotations. Only using 6 or 7 guys out of the 12 man roster wore us out.
- He never stressed defense.
- He refused to let management hire a defensive minded assistant.

Additionally, he was always out-coached everytime we would play SAS or LAL and face Phil or Pop.

I'd be excited to see him try to bring back SSOL and make us entertaining again. Some of our players would see their offensive stats explode. But unless he is willing to take a more active approach on defense and commit to using full rotations of 8-10 players, then I don't want him back.

[GMATCallahan]

Mike D'antoni has never won a playoff game without Steve Nash leading the team. He was exposed so much after he left the Suns. If he could not win a championship with those incredibly talented Suns teams, I doubt he will win one with whatever players the Suns have next year. Steve Nash was SSOL. All D'antoni did was give him the ball and say go. Bringing him back would be living in the past. Apparently Sarver likes that though. We all know he hates social media. Maybe he wants to recapture memories of his time owning the Suns prior to social media taking over the internet.

I am not suggesting that the Suns bring back Mike D'Antoni, but the notion that he merely constituted some accessory or prop is a fallacy. Fans like to have matters both ways: they want to revel in the success that Nash and the Suns enjoyed in D'Antoni's system without understanding or appreciating how that system proved instrumental to that success. Before entering D'Antoni's system at the age of thirty, after eight NBA seasons, Nash had never shot as high as .490 from the field or averaged as many as 9.0 assists in a season. Then in 46 games under Terry Porter and his more conventional system in '08-'09, Nash shot .468 from the field. "Seven Seconds Or Less" was about far more than Steve Nash. The system or style was about surrounding Steve Nash with the right kinds of players and lineups—long-range shooters, perimeter players, athletes—and the right kinds of concepts, all of which maximized space and thus optimized the pick-and-roll and the transition game like never before. "Seven Seconds or Less" was about building the optimal sports car and then giving the keys to a technically virtuosic and savvy race car driver—Steve Nash. But put Nash in a Ford, and the effect was not going to be the same. Nash was a highly skilled, highly creative player with underrated athletic attributes, but the context proved crucial, and D'Antoni—with help from Bryan Colangelo and Jerry Colangelo—created the context.

And strange as it may seem, D'Antoni did not necessarily possess the optimal talent to render his system championship-caliber. Most of all, he needed his primary screen-setter to not only be able to score, but also pass, defend, and rebound—the kinds of things that you see from Draymond Green in Golden State and Tim Duncan in San Antonio (or even Blake Griffin in Los Angeles). He did not possess that player, and he also encountered some bad luck in the playoffs.

The truth is that in Phoenix, D'Antoni never possessed the talent to win at a high rate in a conventional manner—by NBA standards up until that time. Nash was not going to put you over the top as the best player in a conventional lineup, and Stoudemire lacked the technical skills to thrive in the post. Thus D'Antoni spread the floor, ran continually, and constantly ran the pick-and-roll in the half court—with a degree of perpetually wide spacing for the pick-and-roll that the league had rarely seen before. Thus, with Nash at the steering wheel, D'Antoni created an overwhelming offense that largely overrode a soft defense, something that would not have occurred had D'Antoni attempted to play conventionally given his personnel. If D'Antoni had featured a prime Dikembe Mutombo at center and, say, a prime Horace Grant at power forward, he might have been able to win at a high rate with a conventional lineup and approach. Nash's numbers would not have been the same, but the offensive-defensive balance might have produced a championship contender. But of course, D'Antoni did not possess that sort of personnel.

Blaming D'Antoni for "never winning a playoff game without Steve Nash leading the team" is downright silly. He inherited a mess in New York and at least made the Knicks competitive again and a playoff club again for the first time in years. In 2011, his Knicks saw themselves swept in the First Round by a veteran Boston club that had played in two of the previous three NBA Finals. Since New York had traded four quality players for Carmelo Anthony (plus Chauncey Billups) a couple of months earlier, the Knicks did not possess much around Anthony—especially since his presence neutralized Amar'e Stoudemire, and especially since Stoudemire then suffered an injury during the series. In 2013 with the Lakers, Kobe Bryant snapped his Achilles' tendon late in the regular season, and Steve Nash was thirty-nine and had fractured his leg earlier in the season. How was he supposed to win anything in the playoffs with that crew, especially when facing the top-seeded Spurs?

Frankly, D'Antoni showed with the Lakers that his approach was not as ironclad as many imagined, as he basically switched to a post-up offense around Kobe Bryant during that season. There were times with Boris Diaw in Phoenix where D'Antoni briefly displayed the same flexibility. D'Antoni may possess his preferences, but in many ways he really does coach to his personnel. A Laker offense built around Steve Nash was never going to function in the same way that the Suns had in Phoenix, as I explained as soon as Nash and D'Antoni reunited at the end of the 2012 calendar year. Some Laker fans were not happy with my explanation, as you can see here:

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1192331&start=780

But I proved correct.

So D'Antoni adjusted and at least found a way to coach a decrepit Laker club into the playoffs, even if it meant coaching a post-up offense that he did not optimally prefer. But since he possessed different personnel than what he had had in Phoenix, he adjusted.

I always go back to the 2000 Western Conference Semifinals between the Suns and Lakers. D'Antoni, working as an analyst for NBA.com, went against the grain and gingerly predicted a six-game Phoenix upset because of the Suns' array of playmaking guards: Jason Kidd, Anfernee Hardaway, and Kevin Johnson—who had come out of retirement at the team's request after Kidd had broken his ankle late in the regular season and had played a pivotal role in the Suns' First Round victory over San Antonio. D'Antoni felt that that personnel could create problems for the Lakers, and he may have been correct—but we will never know because head coach Scott Skiles never gave it a chance. With Kidd back, and with the Lakers playing big guards for the most part, Skiles mainly kept Johnson on the bench in that series. Thus the Suns' greatest potential advantages—quickness, ball-handling, the ability to play spontaneously in the open court and the ability to move the ball side-to-side and force Shaquille O'Neal to move around more rather than just parking himself in the paint in the era before the modern, revamped defensive three seconds rule—never came to fruition. At one point, Skiles indicated that he wanted to play Johnson more, but that the matchups were not there because the Lakers only played one small guard in Derek Fisher, who came off the bench for limited minutes at the time. Do you believe that D'Antoni would have cared if K.J. had needed to guard a thirty-six-year old Ron Harper or Brian Shaw? Who cares? Any occasion that Harper or Shaw tried to post up K.J. (who was very strong, by the way) was one fewer occasion where Shaquille O'Neal was posting up or Kobe Bryant was playing one-on-one. Oh, and did I mention that Kevin Johnson constituted one of the greatest pick-and-roll guards in history and that Shaquille O'Neal, according to Paul Westphal, was the worst pick-and-roll defender in NBA history (if, according to Westphal, the worst was not Charles Barkley)? Would D'Antoni not have forced Shaq to play pick-and-roll defense against a great pick-and-roll guard time and time again? But Scott Skiles was a conventional, by-the-book type of guy who could not operate outside the box like D'Antoni.

The Suns ended up losing the series in five games, with two of the losses having been very close and the other two having been blowouts. With D'Antoni, the results scarcely could have been worse, and they may well have been better. He understands what constitutes efficient offense and what does not, and he is also willing to adjust based on his personnel.

[GMATCallahan]

I like D'Anotni but I don't know if this is the right fit. He's never been known as a coach that grooms new players. His rotations were always pretty short and we never developed anyone under him. I don't hate it but would rather someone like JVG. I guess beggars can't be choosers though.

Really? Joe Johnson? Amare Stoudemire? Leandro Barbosa? Boris Diaw?

Chris Duhon? David Lee? Wilson Chandler? Danilo Gallinari? Raymond Felton? Timofey Mozgov? Jeremy Lin?

As I noted a few weeks ago, D'Antoni even got a little something out of Earl Clark with the Lakers, something that no one else did.

What people are "known as" is often utterly inaccurate.

[sunskerr]

I would support hiring D'Antoni if we could somehow vacate the PG position for Mike Conley. That would be interesting. But we've got a lot more pressing roster issues (at PF, C) than the incumbent Eric Bledsoe. Do I think D'Antoni could do better than Hornacek? Yeah, sure.

[bwgood77]

Not sure that thread title is the best way to phrase that, but I just made a long post in another thread where this was being discussed and I hadn't seen this thread yet but here is what I said:

Two things:

Tweets about there being rumblings in nba bench coaching circles is kind of a ridiculous thing to tweet from a reporter. It's not a story. It's a purported rumor about what other coaches on other teams guess the Suns might do if/when there is a coaching opening. It pretty much means nothing. I've never cared for Stein, and I hate when he "reports" stuff like this that really doesn't mean anything.

IF D'Antoni came back, he would do a lot of what this forum wants to do. He would HATE to play Knight if he dribbled THAT much and definitely would want him more in the Joe Johnson role. Secondly, he MIGHT play Tyson IF he felt he was a good enough finisher in a pick n roll game and Bledsoe ever became good at it. I imagine he would want a smarter better guy to run it, but plug him with who we have, I'm guessing he would WANT to try to start Bledsoe, Knight, Booker, Warren, and MAYBE one of our bigs IF they could develop a pick n roll game with Bledsoe. I will leave Knight out of it because he wouldn't want the ball in Knight's hands other to quickly shoot or pass. If Bledsoe couldn't become good enough on the pick n roll with Chandler or Len, he would love to start Tucker or Leuer at the 5, because that gives him ANOTHER floor spreader and perhaps they could work on the pick n roll some with Bledsoe until he got better at it.

But his defensive philosophy basically boils down to scoring more points off a break neck pace at higher offensive efficiency than the other team. He honestly didn't care as much about getting back on d to slow it down because he wanted to keep catching the other team off guard going the other way...he didn't wanted us to let them get into their game.

Once he was asked about D or giving up 120, after a win and answered with something like "well, we had the best defense on the floor tonight" and I think he said something similar at the end of a year "Well we were 62-20 so in 62 out of 82 games we had the best defense on the floor.

Now it's good he had good defenders in key spots when other teams low it down or just to stick Marion on their best guy, but there wasn't much focus there, he wanted to maximize strengths on one side and be THE best, to where it would be incredibly tough for any team to score more.

Unfortunately, if he tried that with this squad today, our offensive efficiency wouldn't be that good, and our defense would be terrible. We MIGHT lose most games like 140-120. I mean, it might be more fun to watch if the guys would listen to him, but I think it would have taken him a while with guys on our team if he had coached it this year and we would be really bad, and obviously he wouldn't have been able to do anything with the team last year because it was in such disarray.

Regardless of who is coach next year, if Kieff is gone, we get a nice replacement and these guys get some time to play together, we will be better mostly because of all the stupid clouds, disgruntled players and constant roster moves during and throughout the season. Not many would deal well with that.

And by the way, I don't really mind D'Antoni's defensive philosophy so long as you have the players who can be among the most efficient offensive players in the league. I don't think we are close to having that, so it probably would look more like what he tried to do in NY and LA, at least until our players developed a bit more or we had better ones.

[rsavaj]

5 bucks says D'Antoni would leave the team again after half a season with this bunch.

This is just not a good squad. Jeff's lost the team, the team's quit on Jeff, Jeff hasn't done a great job coaching, and the players aren't doing their jobs either.

Count me in with the group that thinks that until the roster is fundamentally changed, a thousand coaching changes won't make a difference.

[Jarlaxle0204]

I like D'Anotni but I don't know if this is the right fit. He's never been known as a coach that grooms new players. His rotations were always pretty short and we never developed anyone under him. I don't hate it but would rather someone like JVG. I guess beggars can't be choosers though.

Really? Joe Johnson? Amare Stoudemire? Leandro Barbosa? Boris Diaw?

Chris Duhon? David Lee? Wilson Chandler? Danilo Gallinari? Raymond Felton? Timofey Mozgov? Jeremy Lin?

As I noted a few weeks ago, D'Antoni even got a little something out of Earl Clark with the Lakers, something that no one else did.

What people are "known as" is often utterly inaccurate.

Fair enough. I stand corrected. I do however still believe that his rotations were pretty short unless you disagree with that as well.

[AtheJ415]

I'll just add this--I think people saying Mike has to have a Nash-type floor general to be successful are vastly underselling Mike as an offensive coach. There's a reason he is a part of things like the Olympic team, and is so widely respected as an offensive mind. I am very hard on coaches and imo he's the best offensive coach out there. He ran a system that was a good fit with Nash, but like any good coach, he can adjust his system to fit the strengths of his players. He has proven that elsewhere, in NY for instance. I have little doubt Mike could have a lot of success with our young offensive talent.

Whether he could coach the defense up is a different question imo. Yes, he's never been as bad on that end as most suggest. Any tempo-based offense in any sport has to adjust for the impact to the defensive numbers. More possessions means real analysis has to be on a per possession basis to have any real value. Points per game and other such metrics must be thrown out. That said, Mike is not a strong defensive coach (he's probably average to slightly below average). He's an offensive guy. Always has been, always will be. He would need more help on that end. And under no circumstances should he be given personnel decisionmaking authority.

[PhxSunsFan13]

5 bucks says D'Antoni would leave the team again after half a season with this bunch.

This is just not a good squad. Jeff's lost the team, the team's quit on Jeff, Jeff hasn't done a great job coaching, and the players aren't doing their jobs either.

Count me in with the group that thinks that until the roster is fundamentally changed, a thousand coaching changes won't make a difference.

Wholeheartedly agree.