Posted by King1:

Holfresh I am going to my double wide and shoot myself after I say this. I totally agree this is Loyola Marymount, or the San Diego Chargers in the Dan Fouts fun to watch but half court game with defense and not turning over the ball wins big games.

Whats the difference between D'Antoni's philosphy and the Lake-show of the mid to late 80's? Two words: Magic and Kareem. Doesn't matter what type of style you want to play, crawl it up the court and race it down the court, you need the star players to run it. Bottom line, Tim Duncan is one of the top 15 players of all time...The Suns didn't have anyone to match him. This is a players league.
The 93' Suns team was more talanted top to bottom than the Bulls were, yet they lost to the all time greatest player in Jordan.

Again, you need the horses regardless of style.

[Edited by - uptown on 11-02-2008 2:02 PM]

Posted by Uptown:

Posted by King1:

Holfresh I am going to my double wide and shoot myself after I say this. I totally agree this is Loyola Marymount, or the San Diego Chargers in the Dan Fouts fun to watch but half court game with defense and not turning over the ball wins big games.

Whats the difference between D'Antoni's philosphy and the Lake-show of the mid to late 80's? Two words: Magic and Kareem. Doesn't matter what type of style you want to play, crawl it up the court and race it down the court, you need the star players to run it. Bottom line, Tim Duncan is one of the top 15 players of all time...The Suns didn't have anyone to match him. This is a players league.
The 93' Suns team was more talanted top to bottom than the Bulls were, yet they lost to the all time greatest player in Jordan.

Again, you need the horses regardless of style.

[Edited by - uptown on 11-02-2008 2:02 PM]

I totally agree with you that it's the players and not the style that matters...You need stars to win in this league period...That said, the Lakers first option was Kareem in the post...

Also, those teams you mentioned had defenders on them...Kareem, Micheal Cooper, Jordan,Pippen,Horace Grant, Rodman...

[Edited by - holfresh on 11-02-2008 2:16 PM]

Posted by holfresh:

Posted by Uptown:

Posted by King1:

Holfresh I am going to my double wide and shoot myself after I say this. I totally agree this is Loyola Marymount, or the San Diego Chargers in the Dan Fouts fun to watch but half court game with defense and not turning over the ball wins big games.

Whats the difference between D'Antoni's philosphy and the Lake-show of the mid to late 80's? Two words: Magic and Kareem. Doesn't matter what type of style you want to play, crawl it up the court and race it down the court, you need the star players to run it. Bottom line, Tim Duncan is one of the top 15 players of all time...The Suns didn't have anyone to match him. This is a players league.
The 93' Suns team was more talanted top to bottom than the Bulls were, yet they lost to the all time greatest player in Jordan.

Again, you need the horses regardless of style.

[Edited by - uptown on 11-02-2008 2:02 PM]

I totally agree with you that it's the players and not the style that matters...You need stars to win in this league period...That said, the Lakers first option was Kareem in the post...

Also, those teams you mentioned had defenders on them...Kareem, Micheal Cooper, Jordan,Pippen,Horace Grant, Rodman...

[Edited by - holfresh on 11-02-2008 2:16 PM]

Defenders who could get out an run. Where are the defenders on this roster D'Antoni inherited. This team didn't play any D for Brown, Wilkins, Isiah or Chaney.

As far as Phoenix is concerned, they had two decent defenders....Marion and Bell. D'Antoni knew he needed more defenders which is why they added Kurt but it wasn't enough. End of the day, Duncan was still the best player on the court.(PERIOD)

When the Lakers won, Kareem and Magic were the best players. When the Pistons won, Rodman would have never won a ring if he didn't play that year with Isiah, who was better than anyone on the Blazers. Sam for Horace Grant, Cooper etc....Best players win.

Posted by Uptown:

Posted by holfresh:

Posted by TMS:

how does one determine the direction of this organization based off 1 game, Win or Loss? it's crazy talk... they got blown out by a much better team... it's gonna happen plenty more times this year so get used to it... if u view the direction of this team realistically u'r not gonna be surprised when u watch games like that this season... it's gonna take a while for these guys to learn this system & until they upgrade the talent on this team they're just not gonna be all that good to begin with... i'd say at the absolute best this team can be at .500 but that's still too optimistic to hope for.

so yeah, it sucks to watch these guys get their butts handed to them... i don't like it anymore than the next guy... but that's where this team is right now & it's gonna be that way for another year or 2 at the very least IMO.

I hope I am wrong, but I think the offense that MDA runs don't win Championships and hasn't...He had the perfect point guard for that system, the talent around him, he still couldn't win one...I think playoff basketball is all about the half court game..His premise is taking low percentage shots as your first option is a bad one...I don't care who is on the rosters 3 years from now, its not a winning formula...



[Edited by - holfresh on 11-02-2008 1:26 PM]

you are way off and your observations on D'Antoni's offense is inaccurate. First off, his premiss is not to taking low % shots as your first option. The idea behind the offense is to take hich quality shots or your first OPEN shot. This whole 7 seconds or less is not accurate. It was a catchy title for a book but the idea is not to jack up a shot in under 7 seconds. The offense is based on player and ball movement. Its a layered offense that predicates itself on acurate player reads. We dont have the heady players nor the shooters or athletes to really help this offense take off.

To say that D'Antoni had the perfect team and still couldn't win the championship isn't being fair. The Spurs were flat-out better teams than those Suns teams and any team in the league for that matter as they have the rings to prove it. And that Suns team was not perfect as they were desperately missing a post defender to slow down Duncan. I can give you a slew of coaches over the history of the gam that had really good teams, built also for thier style and they have no rngs to show for it.

Don Nelsons 87 Bucks. Really, really good team but they ran into Bird and Celtics.
Rick Adlemans 90-92 Blazers. Built to run his system but ran into Jordan and the Bulls
Adelmans Kinigs. Ran into Shaq and Kobe.
Sloans and the Jazz....Ran into the better player in Jordan....

It happeneds. But at the end of the day the better player's team usually prevails..



[Edited by - uptown on 11-02-2008 1:50 PM]

Uptown is right... u can throw our own '90s Knicks into that equation too... that team easily had the talent to win championships & the right head coach & system to do it, they just had the misfortune of having to go up against 2 of the greatest players who ever lived, Jordan & Olajuwon... u can't say a certain system can't win championships... in the end it's all about the players making the plays... if guys make shots in MDA's system they can win games, it's pretty basic.