If you are a small market franchise whose goal is just to be competitive and make the playoffs year in and year out, but nothing more...I guess he's an ok choice.
Only Way DamnPhoney works in Philly is if they trade Embid for a bunch of 3 & D guys.. Simmons can't shoot the Three & Embid is 7ft tall & needs to be in the post. That's the worst fit ever.
I guess, but franchises tear their rosters apart for this guy’s style and then he leaves and they’re screwed. Now Houston has an ‘Antoni roster and no ‘Antoni. They got rid of Capella and now their tallest living player (Sorry Tyson Chandler) is a 6’9 small forward. Yeah it’s likely Morey will make trades to change this, but this isn’t 2K, you can’t make 8 trades a year and expect team chemistry and such not to matter. Whoever hires ‘Antoni next will face similar issues, it’s the definition of insanity to continue to hire him.
^ Yea I agree. The only trade assets the Rockets have besides Harden are Covington and Tucker, ironically, they are the only two players on that team that play consistent defense...
its mindblowing that teams are still willing to hire this guy in 2020. if he couldn't win a title running his stupid system with guys like harden/cp3/westbrook and all those 3 pt shooters in houston, lol @ thinking he'll be able to do it elsewhere. his tenure with the knicks and lakers showed that if he doesn't have elite level talent (who are healthy,) he's not gonna be able to get anything out of his teams also, i may be in the minority here, but i wouldn't say d'antoni is to blame for kobe's achilles injury. kobe straight up refused to come out of those games down the stretch in '13 and no coach was going to succeed in getting him to sit down
Kobe's demise was the only way Kobe could ever go out. It was the same with Troy Polamalu. You knew the style of play would end poorly. However, David Stern will always be the blame in not letting Kobe have 3 more years before he crapped out to win with a Prime Chris Paul. I wish he were still alive so I could really say what I want. He ruined the Lakers and Kobe's chance at winning more titles.
“You can’t fire me, I quit!” technically a free agent, but no way they bring him back after flaming out in the playoffs
I blame d'antoni for putting Kobe in that position. We had way too much talent to be fighting for a 8th seed.
blame the injuries nash got hurt in like the 5th game, dwight was recovering from major back surgery and wasn't the same player, pau missed 33 games. that's why that team was fighting for a playoff spot instead of finishing top 3 in the west
Will always hate the way he broke down Kobe. Although, that’s not really accurate. It’s not that he broke down Kobe. It’s that he didn’t have the balls to rein in Kobe. Kobe was on a mission to will us into the playoffs. He wanted those minutes. D’antoni should have said no. And yeah he forces his system in situations where it doesn’t fit. But unpopular opinion here, overall I don’t mind him. When the personnel fits, his offense is very fun to watch. As much as I hate that Phoenix team for beating us, they were such a fun team. Yeah a lot of that was prime Nash, but I give D’antoni some credit. And this year, all this talk about Houston being the death of basketball with the way they play. I agree with that, but it’s never been because of the imprint D’antoni had on that offense. It’s because of Harden. His foul drawing has always been what makes them so frustrating from a fan perspective, not D’antoni’s system. At least for me. I would be very intrigued to see what he could do with a Lonzo, BI, and Zion trio in New Orleans.
don't make me derail this thread. if not for lebron coming, it might have ended the franchise, knicks-style (except they did it to themselves). stern knew what he was doing, and he never made it up to us even after i'm sure he realized that it wasn't even in the best interest of the league. i honestly never found phx that fun. nash was fun, but he was fun to watch in dallas, pre-dantoni. his single-player ball dominant offense made joe johnson look like a replacement player (went on to be a perennial all star in atlanta). even when he played fast, he played through one guy. i prefer offenses that move the ball. and i like to watch teams compete on defense, which dantoni basically pays lip service to when pressed. but your latter point--that houston wasn't really dantoni's system--is partly true. it's true in that they didn't play fast, which had to kill dantoni. but harden won't do that because playing fast might not make him look as great individually. but the full-on commitment to the three and the complete abandonment of bigs was textbook dantoni. so it was a compromise. an unwatchable compromise. i agree that dantoni in phx was definitely more fun than dantoni in houston. as for NO, i thought about it, but remember that lonzo can't shoot, and neither can zion. so zion's a center, and ingram's your primary ballhandler, and only redick is there to space the floor. so, they can play fast, but they can't just barrage threes all game. feel like that's a no go.
I was thinking about this a few weeks ago in the bubble thread... That'd actually be my pick for him. With young players who can get out and run, they have a few good shooters and the 4th pick to get another playmaker, shooter, or use it to trade for one. They're a team with very low expectations, so that removes most of the pressure. Bulls make some really terrible coaching hires though. As you mentioned, Hawks could be a good fit. Another team with low expectations, loads of youth and one of the best shooters in the league. He'd inflate the hell out of Young's numbers. They might have to many bigs for MDA though. (Plus I don't want his brand of basketball in my city). Definitely a good year to be a coaching free agent. Tons of options out there, between playoff teams, teams with superstars and franchise players, cap space/ high draft pick teams. There aren't usually this many quality varying options out there.
also, if you look at dantoni's choices of destination, they're all big cities. i think he likes that life, and chicago's the last really big US city for him to hit. speaking of the coaching FA market--who's going to get atkinson? he was unfairly dismissed in bkn (might have saved him some headaches, tbh). i thought he did way more with them than he should have. i wanted him when we hired luke.
i mean, he's not young. and he's made a ton of money. i imagine he can walk away. i don't think anyone's going to hand him the keys to a title contender, so he'll have to just keep claiming that any team that doesn't play a center and wins validates his worldview.
