D'Antoni

Talk of the Phoenix Suns firing Mike D'Antoni seems petty misguided to me -- there are some things to be said in favor of the idea, but realistically what better coach is going to emerge? Meanwhile, it's pretty clear that over the years Phoenix has been sabotaged by management. Not necessarily even by bad management, just stingy management -- the Nash/Stoudemire/Marion core was very successful and won a lot of games, but the teams fielded always lacked bench, depth, and flexibility.

And the Suns could have had more depth pretty easily -- they were the sort of squad usable veteran role players like to sign with, and they could have used their first round draft picks on players. Instead, they never made the sort of signings that Boston did to fill out its roster this year or that Miami and San Antonio have done in the past, and they essentially sold draft picks. There were totally cognizable reasons for that behavior -- they saved money -- but they weren't good-faith efforts to field a championship-quality basketball team and they were Mike D'Antoni's fault so it seems perverse to blame him for not bringing any rings to Arizona.

Comments

I think that's all correct, but given that (a) Phoenix's current roster isn't well suited to D'Antoni's preferred system, and (b) Phoenix ownership is never going to get the players to fill out that system due to the aforementioned budget constraints, it seems to make the most sense for both sides to move on.

Incidentally, the word seems to be that D'Antoni will be encouraged to resign, rather than be fired, so that Phoenix is not on the hook for his contract.

Simmons has a great "what if" article up as a requiem for the Nash/D'Antoni Suns era. Somehow I'd completely erased memory of the Joe Johnson fiasco from my memory.

Posted by right | May 2, 2008 8:49 AM

It also probably doesn't help that during the off season (contractually test-free) everybody enjoys a 5 month ganja binge. Makes those late, crucial minutes of games early in the season a shorts-grabbing wheeze fest I suppose. Of course post-game that ragged feeling can be soothed by a few shots of Courvoisier, a couple pole dancers and cappin' a couple guy's asses in the parking lot for just for kicks. Not a bad life all in all.

Posted by steve duncan | May 2, 2008 8:59 AM

There were totally cognizable reasons for that behavior -- they saved money -- but they weren't good-faith efforts to field a championship-quality basketball team

Also, I don't know that this is quite right. If the "championship-quality" means anything other than "actual champions", the Suns were a championship-quality team in 2004-05 and 2006-07, and would have been in 2005-06 if Stoudemire hadn't been hurt. They just didn't end up winning, for various reasons (bad breaks, injuries, suspensions, the Spurs, etc.).

Posted by right | May 2, 2008 9:04 AM

and they were Mike D'Antoni's fault so it seems perverse to blame him for not bringing any rings to Arizona.

Did anyone come up with a typology for MY's mistakes, and, if so, was there a clever name for a sentence or clause that ended up meaning the exact opposite of what he intended?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | May 2, 2008 9:09 AM

Yeah, the Simmons article the other day running down the (long) list of misguided front office and ownership errors, starting with Joe Johnson and everything since, is really a great article. When Simmons does columns like that, rather than making Real World references, he is an incredible columnist.

Posted by Al | May 2, 2008 9:10 AM

There were totally cognizable reasons for that behavior -- they saved money -- but they weren't good-faith efforts to field a championship-quality basketball team and they were Mike D'Antoni's fault so it seems perverse to blame him for not bringing any rings to Arizona.

The only way this sentence, and post, makes *any* sense is if one reads a "not" in there after "were" and before "Mike D'Antoni's." I assume you meant to put one there, no?

Seriously MY, proofread your posts at least once -- or at least read the key sentence in your post & be sure it makes sense.

Posted by MY Strikes Again | May 2, 2008 9:11 AM

I agree in principle. There are no good coaches available in the green room to pick up, and so sticking with D'Antoni is the best way to go. That said, he is at a tremendous disadvantage against top coaches like Popovich and Phil Jackson for which he must somehow compensate.

They should have kept Joe Johnson, jettisoned Marion's max contract earlier for a passel of players, actually used their draft picks. Selling two draft picks to get rid of Kurt Thomas's large but expiring contract last summer was a very bad sign and move among a sequence of them.

Posted by Eric | May 2, 2008 9:16 AM

While D'Antoni may not be a perfect fit, the real problem in the west is that guarding Tony Parker and Tim Duncan at the same time is just really difficult.

Posted by Keurig | May 2, 2008 9:19 AM

True, Keurig, but in fact I think the *real* problem is that guarding Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili at the same time is just really difficult.

The Pistons would be two-time NBA champions if they could have slowed down Ginobili a bit better. He sliced through them like butter, repeatedly.

Posted by MY Strikes Again | May 2, 2008 9:24 AM

I agree with almost all of the preceding, except for one thing -- 1st round draft picks. The Suns first round draft picks, due to their relative success the last several years, have been fairly late in the first round. With late first round picks you are not guaranteed a quality player, however the team is required to sign that player to a guaranteed contract, which is of course a hit against the salary cap and one your stuck with till the end of the contract (even if the player doesn't work out).

Rather then drafting late first round players (or trading the picks for cash, like the suns have done in the past and which I certainly don't agree with) the should look to trade down for early second rounders -- you can get comparable talent and if it doesn't work out you can cut the player and not take the cap hit because you don't have to sign the player to a guaranteed contract. Alternatively, you can draft promising young foreign players in the late first round and have them continue to play for whichever euro-league (or whatever) team they play for -- the young foreign player continues to develop, your team has the rights to him and can bring him over whenever they want (admittedly you may have to pay a contract buyout with the foreign team and this can sometimes delay things) and it doesn't count against your cap until he's officially on your roster.

Extra cap room means more money for quality free agents. Of course the Phoenix ownership, as pointed out about, has been very reticent to spend money on free agents.

Go Spurs

Posted by Steve-o | May 2, 2008 9:29 AM

I heard D'Antoni wants out, the Suns want to get rid of him, but neither wants to come out on the short end of the money stick.

Posted by Njorl | May 2, 2008 9:38 AM

But Steve-O, it's been well-documented that the Suns did miss out on specific quality players that could have helped them by selling those picks. You're telling me that it wouldn't have helped them to pick up a Rajon Rondo, Sergio Rodriguez or Nate Robinson to spell Nash (an eternal problem for them)? An Andre Iguodala to help their defense on the perimeter? A Luol Deng to give them halfcourt offensive versatility?

And I'm sorry, but trading down to the second round? I think someone has an NFL draft hangover. It doesn't work like that in the NBA--there aren't as many players and while we all know the 2nd-round success stories out there, you'd be an idiot if you tried to base your team around finding them.

Posted by Jake H. | May 2, 2008 9:38 AM

"Talk of the Phoenix Suns firing Mike D'Antoni..."

Actually, there isn't any talk of the Suns firing D'Antoni. All of the stories that came out were leaked from D'Antoni's side, saying that he didn't want/expect to come back.

The most management has said is that they want to encourage D'Antoni to change his approach in some ways that they think will correct some of the teams' flaws.

D'Antoni (or his staff/sympathizers) appears to have leaked the stories about him leaving either in a fit of pique -- i.e., he genuinely doesn't want to work for a management that thinks they have any right to tell him what to do -- or as a hardball negotiating tactic to put them on the defensive (and thus less assertive about telling him to make changes).

Posted by Swopa | May 2, 2008 9:39 AM

I think they fire him because he's not an Amare guy and Amare doesn't like D'Antoni.

Posted by Asher | May 2, 2008 9:40 AM

I think part of the fault in the Suns having now bench has to reside with D'Antoni. He never made any effort to give his bench any playing time.

Posted by eriks | May 2, 2008 10:07 AM

I'd like to see D'Antoni coach the Bulls. Lots of athleticism on that team.

Posted by Ben | May 2, 2008 10:29 AM

and Amare doesn't like D'Antoni.

I'm beginning to wonder if Amare is a locker room cancer. Maybe Marion wasn't the problem in the locker room - maybe it was Amare instead.

Posted by Al | May 2, 2008 10:30 AM

I'm really hoping we sign D'Antoni, but if I know my team, and I do, we'll probably sign Avery Johnson, which is the wrong move. Blah.

The interesting thing about a D'Antoni signing would be who we resigned this summer.... It might actually make sense to resign Ben Gordon in that situation, although not for anything like the money he thinks he deserves. Perhaps he'll see the error of his/his agent/his cousins ways.

Posted by Freddie | May 2, 2008 10:30 AM

Very true eriks. Just because the ownership was stingy at times doesn't absolve D'Antoni of his own significant share of the blame. The Suns have had a decent bench in the past, but D'Antoni never gives them enough playing time, thus overplaying his starters and tiring them when it comes to the postseason.

If D'Antoni isn't playing the bench, what's the incentive for Sarver to pay up for a guy who's not going to play. Kurt Thomas actually played more minutes per game for San Antonio than he did for Phoenix, despite coming in late in the season.

And D'Antoni is one of the worst in the league at handling game situations such as calling plays out of a timeout or at the end of the game.

As a Suns fan, I wish he would have been fired years ago. It's too late now for it to make a difference.

Posted by Mike | May 2, 2008 10:43 AM

I agree with a lot of this.

One thing to remember is that Phoenix was completely irrelevant in the years between Barkley and Nash, and the Nash signing was widely panned at the time because Nash was too old, only played one side of the floor, and so on.

When good to great players want to flee, then there is something wrong. How much of the blame rests with ownership, the individual players, and the coaching staff is debatable. But losing Joe Johnson, Jason Richardson, and Shawn Marion just decimated their chances.

I agree with the poster above who said the Suns were championship-level. They averaged 58 wins in the four full regular seasons, and were it not for the Spurs, they would have won one or more titles. Just like Jordan denied Malone and Barkley and others titles, so too has Duncan denied Nash. When you are playing in a dynasty era, there are only so many chances to break through and win the whole thing, and they couldn't get it done. That doesn't deny the greatness of the team during that time. The NBA is a better sport today because of the last five years of Suns basketball.

Posted by Curtis | May 2, 2008 10:43 AM

Kurt Thomas not mentioned yet.

Big big factor in the series.

Posted by Spurs analyst | May 2, 2008 10:58 AM

Uh Curtis, Phx never had *Jason* Richardson. They had the considerably less talented *Quentin* Richardson.

Posted by MY Strikes Again | May 2, 2008 11:01 AM

I heard D'Antoni wants out, the Suns want to get rid of him, but neither wants to come out on the short end of the money stick.

Posted by Njorl | May 2, 2008 11:12 AM

I'm beginning to wonder if Amare is a locker room cancer. Maybe Marion wasn't the problem in the locker room - maybe it was Amare instead.

I agree. No one remembers now, but a big reason Amare slid to 9th in the 2002 draft (behind such luminaries as Drew Gooden, Dajuan Wagner, Chris Wilcox, and Nikoloz Tskitishvili) was character issues.

Posted by right | May 2, 2008 11:17 AM

I'm beginning to wonder if Amare is a locker room cancer.

Now tell me how much you loved Kidd, Al.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | May 2, 2008 11:24 AM

Sorry - my bad entirely on the Richardson brother mistake. That is almost as bad as messing up the Bretts or the Stallones.

I was looking up basketball value's adjusted plus minus statistics - I could easily spend a day or more there just filtering through the numbers.

Phoenix's adjusted +/- statistics were very interesting. Nash led the way, of course, with a positive 9.6, followed by Shaq at 4.44 and Marion at 2.43.

The number I found stunning was that Amare Stoudamire had a negative number, -1.47 for the regular season (which was inside the standard of error.)

Carmelo is still the only highly regarded player I have found to have a negative adjusted =/- that was larger than the standard error.

And as for the locker room cancer discussion, Amare spent the entire series basically throwing D'Antoni under the bus to the press.

Posted by Curtis | May 2, 2008 11:40 AM

right, is that really right about Amare?

I thought he fell there b/c he was an untested, raw, somewhat undersized big man (is he a 4? a 5?) straight out of high school.

It wasn't like he was D-Wade or Carmelo, with big time #s in the college game, or a lock like LeBron (who is a monster at either 2 or 3). Aside from a Superman or KG-type talent, I don't think teams are super eager to take a 4 or a 5 right out of high school. Footwork & positioning is HUGE for the 4/5s, and you don't learn that playing 17 yos.

Yeah, I think the rule change prevented Oden from coming straight out (I don't recall the timing right now), but I bet his playing a year at OSU was quite helpful to his development, and his draft might well have been higher than it would have been had he come straight from HS.

Posted by MY Strikes Again | May 2, 2008 11:57 AM

I thought he fell there b/c he was an untested, raw, somewhat undersized big man (is he a 4? a 5?) straight out of high school.

Amare went to a bunch of different high schools. There's a lot of jail in his family history. His mother, in particular, has been in and out, including when he was in the pros, I think. This was also the year after the Kwame/Tyson/Curry draft, and he was the only high schooler drafted.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | May 2, 2008 12:08 PM

Steves,

There is a great strategy for good teams with late 1st round picks, you draft foreign players who aren't coming over yet, but if they did would be higher picks. A lot better move than selling the picks. The downside is you scout wrong and the guy isn't as good, but this at least costs you no money since you simply never sign the guy. The upside is you get guys liek Ginobli. The general consensus is that Portland did just that with Phoenix last pick and Rudy Fernandez.

SA does almost nothing but this. Portland has been using Paul Allen's money to buy up late 1st rounders form dumb teams like Phoenix, besides Rudy they have the best player in Finland (whatever that turns out to be worth) and a guy in England who might be pretty good.

And the Kurt Thomas move is a great example of the ineptness of Phoenix management. They thought Thomas and his expiring contract were so worthless they paid Seattle 2 first rounders to take him off their hands. The Supes turned around and traded him for a 1st rounder. So that one move works out as a negative 3 first round picks by Phoenix! Even if they thought Thomas was worthless as a player (in and of it self a bad assesment) do they have no undertsanding of how the salary cap works and how desirable expiring contracts are at the trade deadline? Hell Dallas and LA pulled guys out of retirement to get expiring contracts to make trades work!

Posted by Eric k | May 2, 2008 12:42 PM

i think it's worth noting that no matter how much we may all like fast-break basketball, there have only been two serious fast-break style championship teams: the russell celts and early showtime lakers (they weren't much of a fast-breaking team in the later '80s).

and both of those teams had something phoenix hasn't had: a great shot-blocking center who protected the otherwise exposed defensive middle that a fast-break orientation leaves.

that said, my attitude about phoenix for the last few years has been great regular season team that won't win the championship, so coach has delivered exactly what i would have expected. still, as the old saw goes, you can't fire the players....

Posted by howard | May 2, 2008 1:37 PM

Now tell me how much you loved Kidd, Al.

Touche.

Posted by Al | May 2, 2008 1:50 PM

Aside from a Superman or KG-type talent, I don't think teams are super eager to take a 4 or a 5 right out of high school.

You have that backwards - almost every player who is drafted top 5 straight out of high school is a 4 or a 5: Garnett, Jonathan Bender, Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry, D-Howard. Only LeBron, Shaun Livingston, and Darius Miles were guards or SFs drafted so high.

2002 was a weak draft, as well. Yao and Jay Williams were consensus 1-2, but Amare, without character issues, probably would have gone 3 or 4.

Posted by right | May 2, 2008 2:28 PM

Really? How about Martell Webster (6th pick, 6'7" guard) or T-Mac (9th pick) or Telfair (13th). Sure, not in your arbitrary top 5, but very high. As were Kobe, Josh Smith, and J.R. Smith.

At bottom, relatively few people went prep-to-pro. See this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prep-to-pro_players

After the disaster of the 2001 Draft for prep-to-pros (Kwame, Chandler, Curry, Diop, all in the top 10) you see such picks, period, generally not going very high (aside from LeBron & Superman). And then your next highest such picks are Webster, Livingston & Telfair. (Sure, a 7'1" Swift is up there too.). I think the 2001 draft results for big preppers had to have been a factor in Amare's draft position.

In any event, I will say that the small sample size precludes any clear conclusion, but I do think that teams, after 2001, became rather hesitant about blowing a top pick on the latest highly touted 4/5 to jump straight from HS.

Posted by MY Strikes Again | May 2, 2008 3:34 PM

Whatever the scuttlebutt, D'Antoni deserves the blame for one aspect of Phoenix's shortcomings, no minutes for the bench. We don't know how talented Phoenix's bench is because they never see the floor in actual games. Phoenix's bench played less than 70 minutes a game, the fewest of any playoff team. Only one person has control over that statistic and that's D'Antoni. Going down the list it's not like the Sun's bench is a bunch of stiffs: Piatkowski is a decent shooter, Strawberry is very athletic which may have helped in spot minutes on Ginobli or Parker and Giricek was a contributer with the Jazz.

Posted by Iron 6 | May 2, 2008 3:58 PM

became rather hesitant about blowing a top pick on the latest highly touted 4/5 to jump straight from HS.

It's not position they're drafting, but size, speed and athleticism. Same out of college. Actual skill is less important. Count the number drafting mistakes, weight by closeness to the top pick. I feel certain that it'll reflect an interest in size, speed and athleticism more that any other set (skill? experience?) of attributes.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | May 2, 2008 4:50 PM