Posted by nysportsfan11:

I love it when fans regurgitate media myths. That wasn't the exact reason he left Phoenix. The exact reason was Robert Sarver. The exact reasons were Sarver's infatuation with making Phoenix fans forget the Colangelo's ever existed, Sarver's desire to stick his nose into basketball decisions while admittedly knowing nothing about the sport, and Sarver not wanting to spend money on anything but old, injury prone, ball stoppers that he knew damn well didn't fit not just D'Antoni's system, but Nash, Diaw, Amare's or Barbosa's style of play.

But if you want to continue to believe the hype, the difference is D'Antoni NEVER had GM duties here and is working FOR an experienced GM that's actually accomplished something other than being the owner's favorite former player and golf buddy.

As for Denver, they were a ****ty mess before and after D'Antoni coached them for 50 games.

Posted by knicks1248:

To say we are going to sit through another 3 years of "LET ME SEE WHO FITS" BS is utterly ridiculous. The only thing that peolpe wanna here and see is that we make the playoffs this year, a little further next year , and the following year you would land your big fish to carry us into the Finals. we have no time for any kinda of 20+ season with baby steps every year. All thats going to do is start the fire "D antoni" chants. If anyone excepts anything less then an 8th seed, this year, then you obviously think things went well as plan with LB, IT..And if thats the case Your probably just passing by.

Posted by djsunyc:

forget all that jazz...

every destination is a new one. d'antoni has to prove he can win in the nba w/o steve nash. he has to prove it b/c he hasn't done it yet. just like riley had to prove he could win without showtime. riley succeeded. will d'antoni? i don't think anybody can tell...

Posted by nixluva:

It's not exactly a new flash to say Mike is not on Riles level, I mean come on. That's not the point tho. He's got more of a body of work than the Denver stint and his 1st year with the Suns. I mean how can you kill the guy over his 1st partial season in PHX, when they GUTTED the team in terms of experienced players and tried to introduce a completely new system without the requisite floor leader a team needs?

They targeted Nash knowing that it was the right move for that team and Mikes system. Now we won't have Nash, but then we aren't expecting to jump from 23 to 50+ wins with what we'll have here. We're looking to establish the system and determine who to keep and who to move out and what we'll need to acquire to make this a good team.

I actually think we've got some decent players to start with. Since this is the NBA you all know that it doesn't take much to completely change a team. Especially when you're talking about a coach who believes in playing the best 8 and best 5 for much of the game. I'm glad that many of the more talented players are still young and we can get them trained in playing a better brand of BB. They should be ready when 2010 hits.

Posted by nixluva:

Posted by Pharzeone:

Posted by nixluva:

It's not exactly a new flash to say Mike is not on Riles level, I mean come on. That's not the point tho. He's got more of a body of work than the Denver stint and his 1st year with the Suns. I mean how can you kill the guy over his 1st partial season in PHX, when they GUTTED the team in terms of experienced players and tried to introduce a completely new system without the requisite floor leader a team needs?

They targeted Nash knowing that it was the right move for that team and Mikes system. Now we won't have Nash, but then we aren't expecting to jump from 23 to 50+ wins with what we'll have here. We're looking to establish the system and determine who to keep and who to move out and what we'll need to acquire to make this a good team.

I actually think we've got some decent players to start with. Since this is the NBA you all know that it doesn't take much to completely change a team. Especially when you're talking about a coach who believes in playing the best 8 and best 5 for much of the game. I'm glad that many of the more talented players are still young and we can get them trained in playing a better brand of BB. They should be ready when 2010 hits.

The problem you have is that facts aren't on your side. In his two seasons without Steve Nash, his record as head coach was terrible.

LIke I said, you want to base your opinion of Mike off of one yr with a lousy Nuggets team and a partial yr with a Suns team that was torn down so they could retool the next yr.? They basically fired the original Coach and installed Mike, lost Amare for a while due to injury, traded Steph and Penny and relied on the young core. It was clearly a transition period.

Our team isn't a world beater and will also need to be retooled, but we've got a little more stability in that many of the guys are returning players. It should be interesting to see how they respond to Mike. One thing we do know is that the players on this team seem to always play better when we're more uptempo.

Posted by nixluva:

Maybe I am missing something cuz the 4-11 record they had according to u is a very small sample and any team can have a dip when their star and leader goes down. The Suns didn't have good backup PG and the drop off was too big.

I think Mike only needs a smart PG to at least run the offense and feed off of the defenses reactions. That's the idea behind Duhon being here. Mike knows he needs a good PG to make this work at it's highest level. That doesn't mean he can't do it without Nash. He just needs to eventually find another PG with the IQ and passing skills to run his offense.

Posted by nixluva:

You make it sound like this impossible. Just remember that Nash wasn't Nash the MVP until he got with mike. Nash own words are that mike helped him immensely to become the player he is now. No one at the time they signed Nash expected him to play at that level. What gave him that boost was Mike.

Now we will have to wait and see if he can identify and acquire another PG that he can help to do similar things. I'm betting that they'll find that player. In the meantime we'll make do with the guards we have and see how much they can learn and improve.

Posted by knicks1248:

Posted by nixluva:

You make it sound like this impossible. Just remember that Nash wasn't Nash the MVP until he got with mike. Nash own words are that mike helped him immensely to become the player he is now. No one at the time they signed Nash expected him to play at that level. What gave him that boost was Mike.

Now we will have to wait and see if he can identify and acquire another PG that he can help to do similar things. I'm betting that they'll find that player. In the meantime we'll make do with the guards we have and see how much they can learn and improve.

Which brings it back to my point surrounding our players. They have essentially played in every possible system except a run and gun. To rule these guys out with out giving it at least 3 months is very un fair. Nash was always a good pg, who becane great under Mike d system. We have a lot of good players, is it hard to believe at least one will becone great in this system.