Can We Win w/ D'Antoni

Like many Knicks Fans I am happy that we can now look back at the Isaiah Era as we move forward and try to restore the prominence of what was once a proud and respected franchise. I think Donnie Walsh has been decent as a GM as he was able to clean house and give the Knicks young talent and some flexibility to work with in the future. Up until this point however, the Knicks have not show any real improvement. This of course is part of the rebuilding process and considering how there was no real continuity and players were all looking out for themselves with contracts expiring, to fault D'Antoni at this point would be premature.

Up until this point, I have ignored most of the criticism of our coach as he has never really had much of a chance to put his system into place. I think the most legitimate point that has been made is his lack of emphasis on defense and rebounding. Even as a D'Antoni supporter I am truly concerned by his disregard for the two most critical components of championship winning basketball. I have no doubt that the Knicks will be entertaining but quite frankly I got plenty of that reading the newspapers when Isaiah was running things. I don't care about just "making the playoffs" I want to dominate.

Looking back on the history of the NBA, I cannot recall a team outside of perhaps the Showtime Lakers that could get away with average defense and go deep into the playoffs. As potent as the D'Antoni Offense can be I honestly feel that this Knicks team regardless of personal will not win the Eastern Conference Finals unless D'Antoni accommodates more effective defensive players at the expense of his personal taste. So when Donnie is looking to trade Wilson for Rudy most people scratch their head, but in D'Antoni's "system" which overvalues offensive prowess and undervalues defense this is a slam dunk.

Considering where we stand now do you feel D'Antoni will be able to coach a contender?

HELL NO!

What coach do Dantoni remind me of?
The Nets ex-headcoach Frank, when he got fame and a long contract from
the performance of PG-Kidd/SG-Kittles/and PF-K.Martin (The Nets real Big-3).
When Kittles/Martin was traded coach Frank was not worthy of being an
assistant headcoach in the NBA.

Delete this thread

I'm optimistic, I refuse to NOT believe in this team. Call it what ever you want. I like the coach! I like the players. I'm not gonna hate on this dude when he hasent proved that he can't coach. He has gotten close with the suns, and if he was givin more time in the ultra grimey NBA, he might have gotten there sometime. You guys can disagree with me all you want but the FACT is no one knows yet! You can judge off what he has done in the past but from a optimistic Knicks fan. I like to think he is coaching better and has learned what works in past expierences.

If he sucks and the team sucks then HELL YA, find a new coach, but right now I like the potential of a high powerd M D'ANTONI offense! But I get the question, and YES I think he can win the EAST eventually but you gotta believe in what we got. Gotta believe :gonyr go be a nets fan when they make the switch!!

Kiyaman said:

HELL NO!

What coach do Dantoni remind me of?
The Nets ex-headcoach Frank, when he got fame and a long contract from
the performance of PG-Kidd/SG-Kittles/and PF-K.Martin (The Nets real Big-3).
When Kittles/Martin was traded coach Frank was not worthy of being an
assistant headcoach in the NBA.

Delete this thread

Click to expand...

haha dude
frank took a championship team and coached them into oblivion

Mike D came into a hell hole, and finally has real NBA talent

this is the one and only year any one should base judgements on

if he cant win games this season

then he sucks

but I believe we will win around 45

DontForgetDerekHarper said:

haha dude
frank took a championship team and coached them into oblivion

Mike D came into a hell hole, and finally has real NBA talent

this is the one and only year any one should base judgements on

if he cant win games this season

then he sucks

but I believe we will win around 45

Click to expand...

Echo, echo, echo, echo....
:smokin:

DontForgetDerekHarper said:

haha dude
frank took a championship team and coached them into oblivion

Mike D came into a hell hole, and finally has real NBA talent

this is the one and only year any one should base judgements on

if he cant win games this season

then he sucks

but I believe we will win around 45

Click to expand...

Did u write 45 wins?
u went above being optimistic
u need to examine the players history we have on our 2010-11 roster
before making a prediction like 45 wins.

The Knicks were never a Hell-Hole team
Knicks management and coaching staff were lazy/clueless/delusional.
Get it right.

Coach Red Holzman proved what is needed on a mediocre role-player
team by putting a mediocre roster into a 2-unit 9-man rotation for a
.500 Knick season on several occassions.
Isiah refuse to play the young players which resulted in a poor season.
Marbury & Crawford talent was not good enough for the 35 mpg they
received as a Knick.
Dantoni refuse to stretch the 6 to 7-man rotation to a 9-man rotation
which resulted in two poor seasons. Dantoni refuse to put a center
and SG in his rotation for two seasons in a row.
It was the Knick players individual talents alone that manage to
average 30 wins in two seasons.

Without any of Dantoni's phylosophy Phoenix coach Gentry swept the
Spurs using a 9+man rotation.

Kiyaman said:

HELL NO!

What coach do Dantoni remind me of?
The Nets ex-headcoach Frank, when he got fame and a long contract from
the performance of PG-Kidd/SG-Kittles/and PF-K.Martin (The Nets real Big-3).
When Kittles/Martin was traded coach Frank was not worthy of being an
assistant headcoach in the NBA.

Delete this thread

Click to expand...

frank had NO players after those guys left, no coach would have won with that crappy team last year, they would play hard and still lose....Mike D has his players not play hard and still almost win...we should win more games...a lack of "energy" is a horrible excuse for poor performances

Paul1355 said:

frank had NO players after those guys left, no coach would have won with that crappy team last year, they would play hard and still lose....Mike D has his players not play hard and still almost win...we should win more games...a lack of "energy" is a horrible excuse for poor performances

Click to expand...

Coach Frank was a poor excuse for a headcoach and assistant coach.
Rod thorn was forced to fire coach Byron Scott or watch Kidd/K-Mart
purposly go on a losing streak. If I can recall the day Byron Scott was
fired the Nets went on a 13 or 18 game winning streak.
When it was coaches Scott/Ed Jordan/Mike O'Koren that train this
Nets team how to run the "Princeston offense" using Kidd n Kittles style.
Coach Frank was a water-boy coach during the Nets two FINALS run.

Dantoni did nothing the past two years he was here.
The players won games off of their "individual talent".

Kiyaman said:

Did u write 45 wins?
u went above being optimistic
u need to examine the players history we have on our 2010-11 roster
before making a prediction like 45 wins.

The Knicks were never a Hell-Hole team
Knicks management and coaching staff were lazy/clueless/delusional.
Get it right.

Coach Red Holzman proved what is needed on a mediocre role-player
team by putting a mediocre roster into a 2-unit 9-man rotation for a
.500 Knick season on several occassions.
Isiah refuse to play the young players which resulted in a poor season.
Marbury & Crawford talent was not good enough for the 35 mpg they
received as a Knick.
Dantoni refuse to stretch the 6 to 7-man rotation to a 9-man rotation
which resulted in two poor seasons. Dantoni refuse to put a center
and SG in his rotation for two seasons in a row.
It was the Knick players individual talents alone that manage to
average 30 wins in two seasons.

Without any of Dantoni's phylosophy Phoenix coach Gentry swept the
Spurs using a 9+man rotation.

Click to expand...

I guess Celebrity Coach is just that good. :agreed:

What I don't get is...

Looking back through this short thread, I see people saying 45 wins is crazy optimistic and ridiculous to assume. Currently we are on pace for about 45 wins, reaching that crazy optimistic mark. And those same people are still calling for D'Antoni's head.

Can you imagine if a corporation was run this way...

"Well, we are setting our mark at $30 million in profit"
"I think we can make $45 million in profit this year"
"That is crazy optimistic and will never happen because our main accounts guy is terrible and we should fire him!"

--6 months later--

"Currently we are on pace for $45 million in profit, reaching the mark you said would never happen because our main accounts guy is so horrible"
"WE SHOULD FIRE HIM ANYWAY BECAUSE HE ISN'T MAKING $50 MILLION!"

Christ...it's a tautological nightmare from these D'Antoni haters.

^^ The Perfect Post.

It's the same re: Gallo.

This is a basic warm up.

When the season nears its end, a bump masterpiece is coming that will roast a chosen few harder than every circle of Dante's inferno.

I think he is a decent coach. I mean at least he is helping the knicks winning games right now. But I think he should focus a little bit more on defense too, not having mindset of scoring 120+ pts every night.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check out this site for live streaming games tonight <--sporttychannel.blogspot.com

It amazes me how so many fans accept mediocrity. Just because we've been terrible the past 10 years or so people are happy with a 40 win season. The fans here that are mad see that we have the talent to be a 55 win team but our coach doesn't have his players rebound or play defense. He also has no idea how to use players for what they're good at. I mean we got a guy on our bench (Randolph) that is worth a first round pick to any other team in the league yet he's only seen the court twice all season...What a joke! We could be a top team right now if D'Antoni was a good coach.

The problem is D'Antoni is not a good coach...He's a great offensive assistant. We will never win a championship with him no matter how many stars we get...Ain't happening. Bring back JVG!!!

We don't have the talent right now to be a 55 win team.

KingofNy said:

The fans here that are mad see that we have the talent to be a 55 win team but our coach doesn't have his players rebound or play defense. He also has no idea how to use players for what they're good at. I mean we got a guy on our bench (Randolph) that is worth a first round pick to any other team in the league yet he's only seen the court twice all season...What a joke! We could be a top team right now if D'Antoni was a good coach.

Click to expand...

That's manifestly not true and if you read the thread you know that. The people on this board that are mad at our current standing predicted this team struggling to win THIRTY games and 45 wins "with this coach" was insanely optimistic. D'Antoni and this team are exceeding the pre-season predictions, and the "insanely optimistic" predictions.

Most of the fans on this board that were predicting bad things did NOT think we have a 55 win team. And quite frankly, we do not have 55-win talent.

Its funny how a coach is judged based on the players he has. Even Popovich used to joke about how he was just lucky enough to have Duncan all these years.

Look at our lineup and ask yourself. Would switching a coach really equal Amare suddenly boxing out, Turiaf not being injuried, Randolph suddenly playing like a Vet and everyone in the lineup miraculously improving on defense and getting 50 wins?

What people forget is that there is a big difference between defense and just slowing down the pace. We could ask the Knicks as they are right now to just slow the pace to a crawl and play old school basketball, but honestly that would just lead to us being outscored every night and an extremely unhappy roster. Whats important is playing towards the strength of our players. Right now, I don't see how just switching a coach is really gonna suddenly change everything towards the positive. Dantoni is a great scapegoat, but aren't you guys getting tired of blaming him for EVERYTHING?

iJoe said:

Its funny how a coach is judged based on the players he has. Even Popovich used to joke about how he was just lucky enough to have Duncan all these years.

Look at our lineup and ask yourself. Would switching a coach really equal Amare suddenly boxing out, Turiaf not being injuried, Randolph suddenly playing like a Vet and everyone in the lineup miraculously improving on defense and getting 50 wins?

What people forget is that there is a big difference between defense and just slowing down the pace. We could ask the Knicks as they are right now to just slow the pace to a crawl and play old school basketball, but honestly that would just lead to us being outscored every night and an extremely unhappy roster. Whats important is playing towards the strength of our players. Right now, I don't see how just switching a coach is really gonna suddenly change everything towards the positive. Dantoni is a great scapegoat, but aren't you guys getting tired of blaming him for EVERYTHING?

Click to expand...

Very well put. Not to mention firing a coach midseason would prob. lead to a string of losses (implementing a new system and growing pains similar to what we experienced to start this season) before it led to wins...

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset" class=alt2>Originally Posted by iJoe
Its funny how a coach is judged based on the players he has. Even Popovich used to joke about how he was just lucky enough to have Duncan all these years.

Look at our lineup and ask yourself. Would switching a coach really equal Amare suddenly boxing out, Turiaf not being injuried, Randolph suddenly playing like a Vet and everyone in the lineup miraculously improving on defense and getting 50 wins?

What people forget is that there is a big difference between defense and just slowing down the pace. We could ask the Knicks as they are right now to just slow the pace to a crawl and play old school basketball, but honestly that would just lead to us being outscored every night and an extremely unhappy roster. Whats important is playing towards the strength of our players. Right now, I don't see how just switching a coach is really gonna suddenly change everything towards the positive. Dantoni is a great scapegoat, but aren't you guys getting tired of blaming him for EVERYTHING?

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

There are some oponents the Knicks could win using a fast transitition tempo,
and then there are the oponents u need a decent halfcourt setting to win.
Dantoni does not have the NBA experience (or qualities) to coach both strategies.

KBlack25 said:

Very well put. Not to mention firing a coach midseason would prob. lead to a string of losses (implementing a new system and growing pains similar to what we experienced to start this season) before it led to wins...

Click to expand...

Firing the Dantoni-brothers would be a blessing to the Knicks players.
Interim coach Herb Williams could take over in midseason and do twice
as better than Dantoni by disaplinting the roster by using a 9+ rotation.
Herb Williams showed he was the best headcoach for the job when coach
Lenny Wilkins quit. He cut Marbury & Crawford playingtime in half to get the
best out of the roster. Hiring coach Larry Brown instead of Patrick Ewing to
be Herbs assistant was clueless Isiah Thomas big mistake (However, clueless
Isiah did not hire an old hated enemy Larry Brown plus make him the highest paid NBA coach).

<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td style="border: 1px inset ;" class="alt2">
</td></tr></tbody></table>

Kiyaman said:

Firing the Dantoni-brothers would be a blessing to the Knicks players.
Interim coach Herb Williams could take over in midseason and do twice
as better than Dantoni by disaplinting the roster by using a 9+ rotation.
Herb Williams showed he was the best headcoach for the job when coach
Lenny Wilkins quit. He cut Marbury & Crawford playingtime in half to get the
best out of the roster. Hiring coach Larry Brown instead of Patrick Ewing to
be Herbs assistant was clueless Isiah Thomas big mistake (However, clueless
Isiah did not hire an old hated enemy Larry Brown plus make him the highest paid NBA coach).

Click to expand...

Yea, Herb Williams proved he was such a great coach in his short term stint. I especially liked his offensive plays "Everybody stand around" and "Nobody make a screen" and "Stagnant Offense Play #4000". Really made them a much better squad... /sarcasm.

KBlack25 said:

<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td style="border: 1px inset ;" class="alt2">
</td></tr></tbody></table>


Yea, Herb Williams proved he was such a great coach in his short term stint. I especially liked his offensive plays "Everybody stand around" and "Nobody make a screen" and "Stagnant Offense Play #4000". Really made them a much better squad... /sarcasm.

Click to expand...

Notice the total evasion of the rest of the thread, by way of the classic Herb Williams non sequitur.