In The Maturity Battle, Rookie Jordan Hill Tops Coach D'Antoni
by Seth Pollack on Mar 22, 2010 2:31 PM MDT
in Phoenix Suns Commentary
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PrintYou've got to love old Coach Mikestache. Asked about his approach to playing rookies, D'Antoni said this:
"I don't like to play bad rookies. I like to play good rookies," D'Antoni said, explaining that Hill was not showing enough in practice to warrant playing time ahead of the Knicks' more established frontcourt players. "I do like Jordan. I think he'll be a nice player in the league, but that's as far as it goes."
To which ROOKIE Jordan Hill fired back...
"Didn't hear that, but what can I say? That's him," Hill said. "He's entitled to his own opinion, so if that's the way he feels, that's how he feels. I'm not trying to make a point. I'm just trying to play basketball. I just want to go out there and have fun and play my game."
Way to take the high-road there, rookie coach.
In a related note, Tom Ziller goes back and looks at D'Antoni's coaching career history with rookies and finds that only Leandro Barbosa got serious run and that was in 2003.
Ziller lists the other rookies D'Antoni had to work with - studs like Jackson Vroman and Yuta Tabuse - and argues that you can't blame him for not playing those guys. Fair point.
But it ignores all those high draft picks the Suns never had a chance to see because Mike didn't want any part of developing 1st year players.
$4m for Marcus Banks as the back up point guard instead of drafting Rajon Rondo?
Signing off on the 2004 trade that sent the #7 pick (Loul Deng) to Chicago in return for the #31 pick (Vroman) and the Bulls '05 pick (Nate Robinson) who was then shipped to the Knicks (ironic much?) for Kurt Thomas who D'Antoni didn't play much in '07 resulting in the '08 salary dump that cost the Suns their '08 and '10 1st round picks?
Instead he went with your Walter McCarty's, Eric Piatkowski's and Jumaine Jones'. And who can forget that savior of the playoffs, Jalen Rose.
D'Antoni is a coach who likes certain players and doesn't like other one's. If you are in his dog house, you can forget ever getting out and for rookies - unless they happen to the son of his former Italian party buddy - you can forgetaboutit.
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Mike looks increasingly bad
Since leaving the Suns. Yahoo’s Kelly Dwyer had a great article about it today:
Let's not forget Jimmy Jackson
Although he had a few good games.
Blogging Suns Basketball. Twitter: @willcantrellphx
by Wil Cantrell on Mar 22, 2010 2:45 PM MDT up reply actions
Jim Jackson's fate was strange
Of all the snubs Coach D’Antoni made of potentially valuable Suns players, the snubbing of Jim Jackson was the most mysterious. During the 2005 playoffs, he filled in for Joe Johnson during JJ’s eye injury. But not long after that, he became totally ignored for no reason that I know of. And Jim Jackson wasn’t one of those bench players who might not have been very good anyway (Jumaine Jones, Eric Piatkowski, Pat Burke, Sean Marks, Marcus Banks); he could play. Before he left, Jackson made a slightly cryptic remark about there being no communication. I had a classmate in fall 2005 who was his neighbor in Scottsdale, and got to talk to him; she told me he had some kind of injury. But it probably couldn’t have been very bad, because I never saw anything about it in the paper or on or sites like this. So I always wonder what happened with Jim Jackson. Losing him was almost as much a waste as losing Kurt Thomas was.
yeah but when an exiled player
never crops up on someone else’s roster either, then maybe the benching was warranted. How many of those guys above, including Jim Jackson, ever played significant minutes in the NBA again?
(of course, you could also argue that Mike D hurt their career opportunities by not playing them)
Twitter: @dahking
Too late to change the stupid twitter name. Did it as a joke to my teenager, but now I'm hooked on the news-feed aspect of twitter.
Some of them were marginal players (Jones, Burke, Marks) and/or ready to retire anyway (Piatkowski). But Jim Jackson was better than they were.
but yet he never played
with anyone else after that, right?
Twitter: @dahking
Too late to change the stupid twitter name. Did it as a joke to my teenager, but now I'm hooked on the news-feed aspect of twitter.
Try http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/Mike-D-Antoni-s-excuse-making-days-are-over?urn=nba,229475#remaining-content
Don't actually click the link
Copy and paste the whole URL (including the “,229475” that isn’t being included in the link) into your browser.
The article is written using Dwyer's usual somewhat non-sensical whimsy
But it’s interesting, nonetheless.
it works if you include the ,229475 in the url
Twitter: @dahking
Too late to change the stupid twitter name. Did it as a joke to my teenager, but now I'm hooked on the news-feed aspect of twitter.
Mike sees and knows...
a lot more about these players than we do. He gets paid a lot of money to make these type of judgment calls and it worked out pretty well here in AZ. I dont know how anyone can blame him for whats going on in New York, they trade all their good players of any value except Lee
I would say let's wait until next year...
The Knicks have a lod of Cap space to sign a big name…Lessee what Mike does with that next year…If he screws that up, then we know the deal…
"I especially liked the part where I dunked on the McDonalds All-American dude..."
Anonymous high-school player after a Virginia basketball state championship game...
"he might have the biggest doghouse in the league, it's a dogmansion"
I liked D’Antoni (at the time), but it seems to me that he had the right leader (Nash) to make things work. I thought their defense was underrated but I always hated(!) the way he didn’t use the bench. And some of those trades…
I much prefer Gentry. I can guarantee you that this year’s Suns team wouldn’t make the playoffs with D’Antoni as coach.
good question....
going to poll that
Blogging Suns Basketball . twitter: @sethpo
by Seth Pollack on Mar 22, 2010 4:19 PM MDT up reply actions
don't know about "wouldn't make the playoffs"
but I do think Gentry will get further with this group than Mike D would have.
Twitter: @dahking
Too late to change the stupid twitter name. Did it as a joke to my teenager, but now I'm hooked on the news-feed aspect of twitter.
Gentry
He gives alot of players chances to play. D’Antoni only plays about 7 players. Porter also wasn’t a bad coach, it was just very hard to make a non-defensive minded team defensive minded.
"What I've achieved now is something that I always figured I would as a kid. I've had that type of determination since I was a youngster playing around the playgrounds, getting dirty after school." - Amare Stoudemire
porter was a dick towards a few players
seriously…there’s stuff about how he treated dragic and a few other players that would make you hate porter.
Porter...
The team is basically doing what he wanted them to do last season, but I guess he just couldnt connect with them or communicate with them properly.
Exactly...
it was more personal then system….Amare said that at the end of last season
Blogging Suns Basketball . twitter: @sethpo
by Seth Pollack on Mar 22, 2010 5:25 PM MDT up reply actions
yeah
2 parts to this. 1 – porter was quick to pull dragic and lopez creating the opposite effect of building their confidence.
2 – porter was asked to emphasize defense to a team of close knit guys who weren’t buying into it. I think the team felt they had bad luck and breaks, that if those breaks hadn’t happened, that they wouldve done a lot more damage in the playoffs..which I agree with.
I like the idea of improving weakness, but with that group of guys, change of strategy wasn’t what they needed as much as
1 – a good center
2 – amare to play like he has the last month
Porter was in a tough spot where gentry was already a player’s coach like d’antoni somewhat
by be-the-ball on Mar 22, 2010 7:36 PM MDT via mobile up reply actions
I hated D'Antoni
for never playing the bench or developing players. It’s HUGE for us right now that we have our bench to turn to in games.
D’Antoni is a good coach but he has his flaws, and his lack of bench development is one of the biggest ones in my opinion.
D’Antoni is also obviously arrogant and stubborn. This Jordan Hill flap makes it obvious. Actually, it started becoming obvious the time he answered a question about giving D.J. Strawberry more minutes. He said something to the effect of “Am I going to play D.J. instead of [the usual rotation]?” and sounded snide.
yep
there were clues from the beginning that d’antoni was a snob and acted like a “know it all”. Luckily we got the best from him – his offense – and now have kept much of it and gotten defense from someone else..
by be-the-ball on Mar 22, 2010 5:23 PM MDT up reply actions 1 recs
The main reason we've been so successful this year
Is because our bench is one of the most effective in the league. No way that happens under D’Antoni.
by jburning on Mar 22, 2010 4:57 PM MDT reply actions 1 recs
yep!
Twitter: @dahking
Too late to change the stupid twitter name. Did it as a joke to my teenager, but now I'm hooked on the news-feed aspect of twitter.
So far
54 voted for Gentry, 5 have indicated that they have a chronic Pringles addiction and 1 person clicked the wrong button.
Grant Hill is totally the next MJ!!
Pringles are awesome
Twitter: @dahking
Too late to change the stupid twitter name. Did it as a joke to my teenager, but now I'm hooked on the news-feed aspect of twitter.
that's funny b/c
it is exactly the reason why it’s an option in the poll
Blogging Suns Basketball . twitter: @sethpo
by Seth Pollack on Mar 22, 2010 5:41 PM MDT up reply actions
Can't mess with results.
All in for AG. Although you have to give credit for Mike for setting up the Nash-era, 04’ was just amazing. Nash + Fun x Gun = Wins*. No one knew Nash was a big deal post Mavs. I don’t know what Porter brought except frustration, i don’t entirely blame him for that fiasco.
I want to believe that Gentry’s success with the team came from learning from Mike and Porter mistakes.
The Suns - Never fails to disappoint 53% of the time, all the time.
"Gentry’s success with the team came from learning from Mike and Porter mistakes"
was basically Alvin’s job description when he signed the contract.
Twitter: @dahking
Too late to change the stupid twitter name. Did it as a joke to my teenager, but now I'm hooked on the news-feed aspect of twitter.
I am starting to get sick of Mike D
and his ways. He gets frustrated and loses faith in players to easily. He already stopped playing Sergio Rodriguez completely in favor of Toney Douglas, who he has benched this season for making mistakes. It’s hard to get any chemistry on a team going when half the players hate their coach. A lot of these problems were masked in Phoenix since Steve Nash was basically the court general.
if we had Mike D now…Would Lou, Lopez, or Dragic be even playing at all?
The Phoenix Suns...Where making average players look elite happens.
no they wouldn't
especially Lou and Dragic. In fact, D would have found a way to acquire Rodriguez (prob for Lopez), just to play him a week and sit him the rest of the time.
Twitter: @dahking
Too late to change the stupid twitter name. Did it as a joke to my teenager, but now I'm hooked on the news-feed aspect of twitter.
by Alex Laugan on Mar 22, 2010 11:29 PM MDT up reply actions
Hey everybody - Mike D is placed in an extremely tough decision when key players keep being traded
It’s easy to judge him when he’s playing with expirings and rooks
I voted Porter
Just for the hell of it hoping I’d be the only douche to do that and then I found out 13 other people voted for him. What a downer. My day is ruined :p
by Lorenzo Franceschi Bicchierai on Mar 23, 2010 3:48 AM MDT reply actions
How many play-off bound teams have we beaten at home and on the road?
I think the Suns are negative against good or .500 and above teams on the road.
I think we need to look at the wins and losses to back our opinions.
Away Victories against Teams .500 or better:
11/2: Beat Miami
11/6: Beat Boston
11/17: Beat Houston
11/29: Beat Toronto
1/31: Beat Houston
2/3: Beat Denver
2/16: Beat Memphis
2/23: Beat Oklahoma City
Away Losses Against Teams .500 or better:
11/4: Lost to Orlando
11/12: Lost to LA Lakers
12/2: Lost to Cleveland
12/6: Lost to LA Lakers
12/8: Lost to Dallas
12/12: Lost to Denver
12/17: Lost to Portland
1/15: Lost to Atlanta
1/16: Lost to Charlotte
1/18: Lost to Memphis
1/25: Lost to Utah
2/17: Lost to Dallas
2/28: Lost to San Antonio
well it depends on what you look at
according to NBA.com, we are 24-17 against teams .500 or better
http://www.nba.com/standings/team_record_comparison/conferenceNew_Mrg_Cnf.html
according to espn.com, we are 21-21 against teams .500 or better
http://espn.go.com/nba/standings?type=expanded&sort=gamesBehind
I assume one of them bases it on the opponent’s record at the time of the game, while the other bases it on current record today. But that’s just a guess.
Twitter: @dahking
Too late to change the stupid twitter name. Did it as a joke to my teenager, but now I'm hooked on the news-feed aspect of twitter.
oops that first one s/b 22-17 against .500 or better teams
Twitter: @dahking
Too late to change the stupid twitter name. Did it as a joke to my teenager, but now I'm hooked on the news-feed aspect of twitter.
Gentry > D'Antoni
Alvin Gentry is a better coach overall, because he has made his team tougher and smarter than Mike D’Antoni’s Suns teams. And he trusts all his players. It completely outweighs D’Antoni’s being a superior innovator and tactician.
The question isn't who's the best overall coach, it's who is best for THIS team right now
I agree that D helped Gentry, but Gentry HAS been coaching since the 90s, so we can’t give all the credit to D’Antoni can we? I also give a great deal of credit to Nash. That’s the most common denominator. And further evidence is that the only coach who failed (Porter) is the only coach who intentionally limited Nash’s impact. So until Gentry is coaching without Nash, and D’Antoni gets a team full of talent, we can’t really answer who is the better overall coach.
But I can say that I like what Gentry does with this team, including Nash, more than what D’Antoni did. I like playing the bench. I like leaving the bench in there to work through rough spots, rather than pulling them right away. I like the development of young guys. And I like that the guys HUSTLE and dive and scrap. That’s so fun to watch.
Twitter: @dahking
Too late to change the stupid twitter name. Did it as a joke to my teenager, but now I'm hooked on the news-feed aspect of twitter.
Mike D does preach defense as several defensive players blossomed under him
Jeffries: D’Antoni Cares About Knicks Defense
By HOWARD BECK
http://offthedribble.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/jeffries-dantoni-cares-about-knicks-defense/
Jeffries, in fact, presents a strong counter-argument to those who contend that D’Antoni cares only about offense. Jeffries was easily the Knicks’ least skilled offensive player. Yet he started 37 of 52 games this season and was sixth in minutes per game (28.1). He led the Knicks in charges drawn.
On Sunday, Jeffries also used his defensive skills to offer a spirited defense of his supposedly offense-obsessed former coach. D’Antoni, he said, is simply using the tools he has.
“I think that Mike’s a realist,’’ Jeffries said. "Defending, like anything else in the NBA, is a talent level. And you can’t have people that are not great defenders and expect them to be great defenders. Just like you can’t have people that aren’t great scorers and expect them to be great scorers. He put me out there to be a defender and he puts guys out there to be scorers. He does focus on defense, but if you don’t have defensive players, then you’re not going to be a great defensive team.’’
He added, "It’s not like he tells the guys, ‘Don’t go out there and guard anybody, just try to score.’ That’s not the case at all.’’
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