OT: Funny and True - D'Antoni on Knicks & Raptors

cool007 · Apr 7, 2009

I was looking at one of the articles and I came across this one.

Raptors and Knicks played back to back last weekend. Raptors beat Knicks that officially ended any hopes for Knicks making playoffs.

Then reporters asked a question about Knicks and Raptors and here is what he said:

D'Antoni Threatens to Clean House

"Unless you have a bad back and were born in Milan, nobody on the Knicks' roster should feel comfortable about returning next season. That was the message from coach Mike D'Antoni yesterday before the Knicks beat the Raptors 112-103 at Air Canada Centre. One night after the Raptors eliminated the Knicks from playoff contention, the Knicks returned the favor and hit the 30-win mark. "Actually they're going in the same direction we're going -- nowhere," said D'Antoni, whose team is 30-47. "We're going to the beach after this, the same as you guys." D'Antoni was speaking before the game when asked if the Raptors were headed in the right direction because of their six-game win streak.

:laugh:

chi_hawks_23 · Apr 7, 2009

Still pisses me off, even 9 months later, that we didn't land this guy.

Rose would be better because of it, the team would be better this year, and we would attract some top notch free agents because of the player friendly system. So short term and long term would have been better with DanTony.

I will get over this someday, but I imagine it may be a long time as once this knicks team reloads with some talent, they will be scary.

dougthonus · Apr 7, 2009

I'm so-so on D'Antoni.

I think he would probably be really good, but I can't be sure. His year in NY didn't really clear anything up as their talent is crap and he lead them to a crappy record.

TheStig · Apr 7, 2009

I think your right Doug, a lot of us got caught up in his style and the fact that we have the next great pg. He still hasn't proven himself outside of PHX and has never really gotten them farther then you would imagine that they could go. The knicks might be much more fun to watch and maybe they cleaned up their act but I think that has more to do with Donnie Walsh getting rid of a roster of selfish players and replacing them with a slightly less selfish group and a pass first pg. I just don't think Dan Tony is going to get the players he needs next off season to be good and will have his reputation ruined through building through the draft and getting mediocre players like the Italian kid.

chi_hawks_23 · Apr 7, 2009

TheStig wrote:

I think your right Doug, a lot of us got caught up in his style and the fact that we have the next great pg. He still hasn't proven himself outside of PHX and has never really gotten them farther then you would imagine that they could go. The knicks might be much more fun to watch and maybe they cleaned up their act but I think that has more to do with Donnie Walsh getting rid of a roster of selfish players and replacing them with a slightly less selfish group and a pass first pg. I just don't think Dan Tony is going to get the players he needs next off season to be good and will have his reputation ruined through building through the draft and getting mediocre players like the Italian kid.

Stig, I can understand this viewpoint.....and it does make sense. What has this guy ever really won? He has proven that he can get close, but can he take a team all the way?

My counter to this is that he was, far and away, the best available coach last off-season. If you compare him to Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, sure he's not to that level. But if we had to chose between DanTony, VDN or Doug Collins or some other assistant, its not even close IMHO. This team would be a 4 seed in the East this year with DanTony at the helm. Our defense would probably be just as miserable, but wed be putting up 110ppg to counter that. We would also be in the running for elite free agents as a lot of these guys had a great experience with DanTony in the olympics.

Instead, we have 'DanTony Lite', where it seems that we are following the same formula, just not doing it as well. Play crap defense and trust your offense to win the game for you. Except that often we look completely inept at the offensive end and rely upon pick and rolls which lead to iso's far too often. We look awful out of timeouts and late in games, our execution is terrible.

I'm not saying 7sol is the ultimate answer, just that it was the best one available and would work very well with this transition oriented team. We missed the opportunity to lock up a solid coach, no doubt about it.

gustavsteim · Apr 7, 2009

Re:OT: Funny and True - D'Antoni on Knicks & Rapto

I agree, D'Antoni still needs to prove himself. But then again, minus the questionable call to suspend Amare for leaving the bench in the Horry/Nash incident and the Suns probably would have been champs. And imagine Rose's rookie year under Mike...

If D'Antoni knew we were going to get the first pick he would have gone with the Bulls. That's why I still feel vindicated watching that video of his reaction at the lottery.

TheStig · Apr 7, 2009

chi_hawks_23 wrote:

TheStig wrote:

I think your right Doug, a lot of us got caught up in his style and the fact that we have the next great pg. He still hasn't proven himself outside of PHX and has never really gotten them farther then you would imagine that they could go. The knicks might be much more fun to watch and maybe they cleaned up their act but I think that has more to do with Donnie Walsh getting rid of a roster of selfish players and replacing them with a slightly less selfish group and a pass first pg. I just don't think Dan Tony is going to get the players he needs next off season to be good and will have his reputation ruined through building through the draft and getting mediocre players like the Italian kid.

Click to expand...

Stig, I can understand this viewpoint.....and it does make sense. What has this guy ever really won? He has proven that he can get close, but can he take a team all the way?

My counter to this is that he was, far and away, the best available coach last off-season. If you compare him to Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, sure he's not to that level. But if we had to chose between DanTony, VDN or Doug Collins or some other assistant, its not even close IMHO. This team would be a 4 seed in the East this year with DanTony at the helm. Our defense would probably be just as miserable, but wed be putting up 110ppg to counter that. We would also be in the running for elite free agents as a lot of these guys had a great experience with DanTony in the olympics.

Instead, we have 'DanTony Lite', where it seems that we are following the same formula, just not doing it as well. Play crap defense and trust your offense to win the game for you. Except that often we look completely inept at the offensive end and rely upon pick and rolls which lead to iso's far too often. We look awful out of timeouts and late in games, our execution is terrible.

I'm not saying 7sol is the ultimate answer, just that it was the best one available and would work very well with this transition oriented team. We missed the opportunity to lock up a solid coach, no doubt about it.

Your right that he was the far and away best coach available to us but he would have cost a fortune. And do you really want to wrap up a fortune for someone we are unsure about while we are still paying Scott Skiles? If Dan Tony didn't work out we would be hiring VDN's for another decade. With a rookie PG and unsure roster we really had the opportunity to chance it on a rookie coach and not really lose much. Despite what Dan Tony has done, he has still hasn't outproduced what IT did two years ago with a similar group of malcontents. So Dan Tony hasn't overachieved expectations anywhere he has gone and with that salary and commitment, you can't tie up a small fortune in him. Also, VDN is starting to turn it around and be decent down the stretch.

chi_hawks_23 · Apr 7, 2009

TheStig wrote:

chi_hawks_23 wrote:

TheStig wrote:

I think your right Doug, a lot of us got caught up in his style and the fact that we have the next great pg. He still hasn't proven himself outside of PHX and has never really gotten them farther then you would imagine that they could go. The knicks might be much more fun to watch and maybe they cleaned up their act but I think that has more to do with Donnie Walsh getting rid of a roster of selfish players and replacing them with a slightly less selfish group and a pass first pg. I just don't think Dan Tony is going to get the players he needs next off season to be good and will have his reputation ruined through building through the draft and getting mediocre players like the Italian kid.

Click to expand...

Stig, I can understand this viewpoint.....and it does make sense. What has this guy ever really won? He has proven that he can get close, but can he take a team all the way?

My counter to this is that he was, far and away, the best available coach last off-season. If you compare him to Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, sure he's not to that level. But if we had to chose between DanTony, VDN or Doug Collins or some other assistant, its not even close IMHO. This team would be a 4 seed in the East this year with DanTony at the helm. Our defense would probably be just as miserable, but wed be putting up 110ppg to counter that. We would also be in the running for elite free agents as a lot of these guys had a great experience with DanTony in the olympics.

Instead, we have 'DanTony Lite', where it seems that we are following the same formula, just not doing it as well. Play crap defense and trust your offense to win the game for you. Except that often we look completely inept at the offensive end and rely upon pick and rolls which lead to iso's far too often. We look awful out of timeouts and late in games, our execution is terrible.

I'm not saying 7sol is the ultimate answer, just that it was the best one available and would work very well with this transition oriented team. We missed the opportunity to lock up a solid coach, no doubt about it.

Click to expand...

Your right that he was the far and away best coach available to us but he would have cost a fortune. And do you really want to wrap up a fortune for someone we are unsure about while we are still paying Scott Skiles? If Dan Tony didn't work out we would be hiring VDN's for another decade. With a rookie PG and unsure roster we really had the opportunity to chance it on a rookie coach and not really lose much. Despite what Dan Tony has done, he has still hasn't outproduced what IT did two years ago with a similar group of malcontents. So Dan Tony hasn't overachieved expectations anywhere he has gone and with that salary and commitment, you can't tie up a small fortune in him. Also, VDN is starting to turn it around and be decent down the stretch.

I suppose there is no "right answer" for who our coach should be. With JR, your right, it might have been a horrible gamble to sign DanTony, assuming he fails or doesn't meet Jerry's/Pax's expectations. Then he's on our books for a long time and we are forced to hire crap assistants until we get old coaches off the books.

Bottom line is you don't see a coach of DanTony's caliber available too often. Did they ever win less than 50 games while he was in Phoenix? If Pax knew he could get a coach who could get him to the playoffs every year (assuming the team has some talent, unlike the Knicks) and average 45-55 wins per season, and is available, he would jump all over it. And he did.....but JR got involved and here we are.

With that said, Im rooting for VDN. I hope he proves to be a great coach.

dougthonus · Apr 7, 2009

chi_hawks_23 wrote:

My counter to this is that he was, far and away, the best available coach last off-season. If you compare him to Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, sure he's not to that level. But if we had to chose between DanTony, VDN or Doug Collins or some other assistant, its not even close IMHO. This team would be a 4 seed in the East this year with DanTony at the helm. Our defense would probably be just as miserable, but wed be putting up 110ppg to counter that. We would also be in the running for elite free agents as a lot of these guys had a great experience with DanTony in the olympics.

This is likely true.

My counter to this is how do you know he's really that great a coach at all. His teams did well, but he had a core of Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, and Shawn Marion which is three legit allstars, and two of them generally considered top 10 players at the time.

He even had Joe Johnson in there for awhile, and he had good role players around those guys like Barbosa, Diaw, Bell, etc..

His teams played at a very high level, but then they had a very high level of talent. If you give a guy great things to work with and he does well, but not great, then is the coach great?

He might be, we might look back at these guys later and think they were all products of the system, but I don't think that's really true of Nash who was an all star prior to D'Antoni, Marion who's stats were basically the same prior to D'Antoni, Amare whom we will find out about soon, or Johnson who went on to be even better after D'Antoni.

AirP · Apr 7, 2009

Steve Nash was just a good(but 2 time allstar) PG when he was signed in Phoenix at age 29. Nash was coming off nearly 9 assists(most in his career at that point) and 15 ppg. His stats and play were enhanced greatly with D'Antoni's system.

Marion was Marion before D'Antoni... Amare we still don't know how inflated his stats were but we've seen him come down from superman to just a very good scoring PF since D'Antoni left. Boris Diaw was nothing before going to Phoenix, Raja Bell was and still is a journeyman.

D'Antoni did build a team that had a legit chance to make the Finals, even with Amare out the whole season his system still kept the team near the top of the standings.

With the athletes on this team... Noah(for a C), Tyrus, Deng, Thabo and Gordon, this team had the players to fit in well with D'Antoni's system... and toss Rose into that mix... wow, this year could have been a much better year utilizing our athletic players better.

dougthonus · Apr 7, 2009

AirP wrote:

Steve Nash was just a good(but 2 time allstar) PG when he was signed in Phoenix at age 29. Nash was coming off nearly 9 assists(most in his career at that point) and 15 ppg. His stats and play were enhanced greatly with D'Antoni's system.

Marion was Marion before D'Antoni... Amare we still don't know how inflated his stats were but we've seen him come down from superman to just a very good scoring PF since D'Antoni left. Boris Diaw was nothing before going to Phoenix, Raja Bell was and still is a journeyman.

D'Antoni did build a team that had a legit chance to make the Finals, even with Amare out the whole season his system still kept the team near the top of the standings.

With the athletes on this team... Noah(for a C), Tyrus, Deng, Thabo and Gordon, this team had the players to fit in well with D'Antoni's system... and toss Rose into that mix... wow, this year could have been a much better year utilizing our athletic players better.

I think you are most likely right which is why I said I think D'Antoni is good, but he still had a boatload of talent on all his teams, so I'm not going to say for sure yet. He got very good results with very good talent.

cool007 · Apr 7, 2009

Doug, I agree and disagree as well.

You are looking at Nash/marion/Amare after they became stars but they were not stars at all without D'Antoni. So one can argue that they became stars coz of D'antoni's system.

We need to look at it this way, how would he have helped us this year?

Would we be 38-41 win team??? or 45+ win team???

IMO, had D'antoni known that Bulls were getting the #1 pick, he would have chosen Chicago over NY in a heartbeat. He should have waited a bit longer.

IMO, if we had D'Antoni with this current Bulls team (including when Gooden/Noch/Thabo were here). I think with the trade as well, we would be around 4th seed and 45+ win team right now. Just my opinion.

Rose would have gotten strong consideration for All-star as well or even Gordon.

I would see Rose's avg to be 20ppg 8apg 4rpg - while Gordon's 24ppg 4rpg 4apg

IceHogsFan · May 23, 2011

Pez68 said:
Did Florida's owner die and I missed it? Do they have a loyal fanbase just waiting to come back and fill up the arena, and dramatically increase revenue? They're in Florida for fuck's sake. Or did you forget this? Are they going to be able to spend to the cap? Did they draft elite players or something? Is there a Kane, Toews, Keith, and Seabrook in this upcoming draft that they are going to land, which will propel them from total bottom feeder, to elite, within a couple years time?

Their leading scorer last year scored 49 points. They still haven't found a head coach. The only player they've had over the last four years that has kept them even remotely competitive, is on his way out. How PATHETIC is that team without Vokoun? While they're a young team with some potential, there is absolutely nothing there that leads me to believe they're winning the cup within the next four years. OR LESS, as you said. They don't have a Crosby, Malkin, Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Toews, Kane, Keith, Seabrook, Sharp, Pronger, St. Louis, Lecavalier, Getzlaf, or Niedermayer.... Winning the cup isn't exactly easy...

They would be more likely to be relocated within four years time, than win the cup. Your love of DT is blinding you. That organization is a joke.

Hockey's Future Organizational Rankings, Spring 2011 1-10

Look Who Is Ranked Second

Tater · May 23, 2011

IceHogsFan said:
Hockey's Future Organizational Rankings, Spring 2011 1-10

Look Who Is Ranked Second

3 of the top 5 are in the Hawks division too.

Pez68 · May 23, 2011

IceHogsFan said:
Hockey's Future Organizational Rankings, Spring 2011 1-10

Look Who Is Ranked Second

Who cares. They're prospects. Those rankings have nothing to do with their NHL talent, which Florida has very little of right now... There isn't much help coming via Free Agency, either, when you look at the list of this summer's UFAs.

Dale has already fucked up twice over the last season. Traded Horton and Campbell for Wideman and a draft pick, and waiving Grabner. Those were both pretty idiotic decisions. HE WAIVED A GUY THAT SCORED 34 GOALS THIS SEASON! Did I mention that the kid is only 23? Then you look at the trade he made for Skille, and you really wonder what the fuck he's trying to do down there... Maybe what he's doing down there is impressing you, but as of now, he's only made that club worse with the moves he made over the last season.

R K · May 23, 2011

Pez68 said:
Who cares. They're prospects. Those rankings have nothing to do with their NHL talent, which Florida has very little of right now... There isn't much help coming via Free Agency, either, when you look at the list of this summer's UFAs.

Dale has already fucked up twice over the last season. Traded Horton and Campbell for Wideman and a draft pick, and waiving Grabner. Those were both pretty idiotic decisions. HE WAIVED A GUY THAT SCORED 34 GOALS THIS SEASON! Did I mention that the kid is only 23? Then you look at the trade he made for Skille, and you really wonder what the fuck he's trying to do down there... Maybe what he's doing down there is impressing you, but as of now, he's only made that club worse with the moves he made over the last season.

He's starting from Scratch with guys who want to be there. Players there did not want to stay. Have you watched any of his pressers? He's doing the SAME thing there as he did here.

He's also had permission from Dudley to talk to Torch. I haven't heard anything since but the permission was given AFTER they signed Torch.

PatrickShart · May 23, 2011

IceHogsFan said:
And Graham

Get back to me when your opinion is fact.

As factual as your opinion that FLA is going to contend for the Cup, simply because the Hawks did it in the 4/5 years?

Pez68 · May 23, 2011

R K said:
He's starting from Scratch with guys who want to be there. Players there did not want to stay. Have you watched any of his pressers? He's doing the SAME thing there as he did here.

He's also had permission from Dudley to talk to Torch. I haven't heard anything since but the permission was given AFTER they signed Torch.

Players want to play for the Panthers?

Shitty ice year round, shitty team, shitty fanbase, no elite talent locked up long term, like other teams. Why would anyone seriously want to play for the Panthers? This offseason will be extremely telling though as far as the future of that team. Dale is good at overpaying to get the guy he wants, which will help him land a couple guys in Florida. I would LOVE to send the Campbell contract his way, though there's no way in HELL Campbell has Florida on his list of teams.

R K · May 23, 2011

Pez68 said:
Players want to play for the Panthers?

Shitty ice year round, shitty team, shitty fanbase, no elite talent locked up long term, like other teams. Why would anyone seriously want to play for the Panthers? This offseason will be extremely telling though as far as the future of that team. Dale is good at overpaying to get the guy he wants, which will help him land a couple guys in Florida. I would LOVE to send the Campbell contract his way, though there's no way in HELL Campbell has Florida on his list of teams.

I doubt he'd go that far from his Dad, which is one of the reasons he stayed here.

Everything else you say is an assumption. I assume there are NHL players that like playing and living in Fl. Just as there are players that like living and playing in Cali, AZ, ect ect.

As far as Dales overpayments, it got you to see a fucking Stanley Cup. I'm certainly glad.

And a MAJORITY of those players are now getting MORE money now. IE Buff's 5.5 mil contract. Let's see what Ladd signs for next.

PatrickShart · May 23, 2011

...not FLA....but maybe when they relocate to Quebec....

OT: Funny and True - D'Antoni on Knicks & Raptors

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