PresIke wrote:CrushAlot wrote:
I agree with this. I also think there is a very legitimate concern when a coach of a rebuilding team that wins 29 games chooses to play marginal vets with expiring contracts over rookies that are supposed to be a part of the future. No one has answered the question, Why was Jonathon Bender getting minutes over Jordan Hill yet.
are you all trying to suggest that darko and hughes are model nba players for coaches? because the record does not suggest this.
what exactly does "coach" them mean to you? again, sometimes some personalities don't mesh between a coach and a player, and sometimes some players have a hard time fitting on any team at all.
so, you are more comfortable dismissing an entire career of hughes and darko over a few games at the end of the season where whenever new players come to their new teams they are usually happy at a new shot.
when hughes came here first he did well for a bit, but then he didn't. so he was made to sit, and what do you know...cried again, like he did in chicago. dude has played for 7 teams over his career...wonder why...
not exactly a shining example of a player to judge a coach by.
again, we can go down the line of players that no matter who the coach have never responded to anyone, and we can sometimes see some who find that one coach that they do mesh with.
as for darko, the dude ended up on an even worse team than the knicks, so he was able to get time. the knicks had a far deeper lineup than the t-wolves, last year of guys who the team wanted to play.
look, i'm not saying mda did a stellar job last year, but i also think it's a bit over the top to only judge a coach by what they did with a roster as it was over the past two years, especially focusing on fringe players like darko and hughes as measuring sticks, and not pay attention to what was done in the past, as well as some other positive developments of players that were here (gallo, chandler, lee, td, walker).
i can't say i expect you to see it this way, but i think the entire picture says mda has shown positives, and struggled with the transitional phase. however, i don't think that is what mda was here to do, although they hoped he could help. he is here to coach a team made up of talent that matches his system. that's where he's been successful.
a coach does not just have to be a motivator, coaches like mda have a system that they want to run, but needs the right players to fit it.
that's the direction we are going. we'll see what happens.
I don't know what happened with Darko and Hughes but I don't think D'Antoni was blameless. My point was that his greatest disservice he did to the future of the team was not to play the rookies. The Knicks were going nowhere after starting out 1-9 and finished with 29 wins. I will ask the same question, how do you play Bender over your lottery pick Jordan Hill on a 29 win team. Up until the trade deadline the only guys that were a part of the future last year were Hill, Douglas, Gallo and Chandler. Not playing Douglas until the March road trip and not playing Hill was a disservice to the team and the future that D'Antoni was supposed to be helping to build. The fact that there was conflict and drama with other guys on the team shouldn't be excused because they were not perfect guys. D'Antoni is supposed to be a marquee coach. Marquee coaches should be able to adjust to different personalities. In my opinion, D'Antoni has shown that he needs and values character, and maturity in a players game and demeanor much more than talent from a guy that might display an attitude or talent possessed by a young player that might need to play and be coached before he is a finished project.
