nixluva wrote:

fishmike wrote:I dont get it.. last I checked the Knicks are playing very good defense this preseason. The defense has been good and the ball movement is improving game by game. Right now our outside shooting is not good and we are getting beat on the boards, BUT even the rebounding thing has improved CLEARLY since that 20 board differential game. Seemed to me that everything the Knicks do poorly is clearly emphasized during the next game. Gallo had 5 boards in the first 10 minutes. Granted he wasnt great after that but the point I am trying to make is clearly his MO after tip off was to attack the glass.

You're right. Just look at the assists this team had last game. 24 is a great number and this team is far from clicking on all cylinders. We want perfect right now and that may be unrealistic given the youth and newness of the team. So many new pieces and pieces that aren't finished products. This is a tough task for any coach, but I believe Mike is getting some results.

I said before preseason that I thought the biggest improvement would be on defense and so far it has been.

AnubisADL wrote:D'Antoni is not the coach for a young rebuilding team. He needs a few all star quality veterans to be successful.

On the other end of the scale you have guys like Skiles who fit a young rebuilding team but co-exist with a team with a few all stars.

If we plan on getting Carmelo I would prefer to keep D'Antoni unless someone like Rick Adelman becomes available.

I think Mayo could some damage with Amare, Carmelo, Gallo(Bench), OJ Mayo()

skiles and Adelman are great at getting a lot out of young teams and not necessarily star studded. Still it's not true that Mike has to have a team full of vets to win. His most successful season was when he had a young Suns team and won 62 games. You had a young Amare, Joe Johnson, Barbosa, Hunter, Casey Jacobsen etc. Even vets like Marion & Quentin were in their 5 & 4th year respectively. It was a young team.

Papabear Says

The way this team plays is like almost a free for all. Everyone shooting 3s. I really don't care for D'Antoni's game plans but if it works I'll be his biggest fan.

misterearl wrote:Rick Adelman?

Huh?

It is one thing to cite a criteria but waiting on Jerry Sloan or Pop is like waiting on The Great Pumpkin.

Get real

Who said anything about waiting for anyone? The question was is Mike D'Antoni right for this team? I simply stated who I thought would be right. Who is "available" is another question.

Rick Adelman is one of the best coaches in the league. He designs his coaching style to get the most out of the roster he has available to him. He simply has not had the best payers (Though he has had very good players at times), but he has run into "superstar roadblocks".

Watch some Rockets games sometime Misterearl, and you will gain some appreciation for how good Adelman is. Or tune into some classic Kings or Blazer games.

oohah

I think he will be around for as long as Walsh because I don't think Walsh wants to admit a mistake in hiring him and feels that he owes him at least this year.

oohah wrote:

Uptown wrote:Right coach? Depends on what you expect the team to achieve. If you want rings, then I guess Phil Jackson, Greg Popovich or Doc Rivers are the only options as they have rings. Rick Adelman, nice coach but no rings. What makes Mark Jackson so qualified?

The difference between Phil Jackson, Popovich, and Rivers is they have had the best talent in the NBA in the years they won. Adelman has never had the best talent nor has Sloan. But they are still every bit as good.

***

What makes Mark Jackson so qualified?

The same thing that made D'Antoni qualified before he coached his first game, which was his experience as a coach on the court. The biggest difference is that Jackson was one of the best offensive orchestrators ever, at the highest level of the game, during one of the most competitive eras, on his resume. If Jackson could devise plays that made the NBA change the rules with his limited talent, I can only imagine what he might come up with as a coach.

oohah

As you stated, this is a players league. You are not winning if you aint go the horses no matter who you are. No one was winning with the Knicks roster of the last 2 years. Doc Rivers went from nearly being run out of town, to one of the top coaches in the league after Garnett and Allen put on the green and white.

As far as Jackson is concerned, Isiah was 3 times the player action Jackson was and Isiah's sideline tactics leave a lot to be desired. Great players done always equal great coaches. Would like to see Jackson pay some dues ala Ewing, etc....

rp wrote:If you already have Amare, you stick with the coach that has helped him become what he is. Otherwise, find someone who was under (i.e. what phoenix did). If you want to change system, I don't see why we should keep Amare as other system may not even be a fit for Amare.

In addition, is the pre-season over yet. I wish the season started already so we can really access the players and coaching.

Come on Amare would be good on any team. Right now he's the lone wolf as others have not played up to caliber. I think we even got an unexpected burst from Mosgov. I have not seen us use a zone yet this year--and we had some real good moments with it. We have longer players--I suggest that we use it--perhaps even 30-32 minutes a game. I think it will help our rebounding and guys like Randolph and Gallo might benefit from some easy buckets in transition as way to get their games going. I think we could use another big who can rebound and shoot + I think we really need to emphasize a zone defense to help reduce the rebounding wows. When I see guys like Gallo and Randolph sit 26 feet from the basket so consistently--you have to put that on the coach. I think proper adjustments need to be made

nixluva wrote:It seems that there is so much emphasis on what people think Mike is doing wrong, that we aren't looking at what he's trying to accomplish this early on in the process. This is a new team that basically has zero history to go on with a 10 man turnover. This system requires a group of players that understand the game at a high level and we have a bunch of developing kids that still don't know who they are yet. If you think he's doing a bad job of coaching, you really don't know what you're looking at.

Gallo is a work in progress, Chan, AR, TD and Moz as well. So there you have a huge part of your rotation that is filled with guys still trying to figure out who they are and that's in addition to Felton who is trying to relearn the game from a 180 degree change from what he was asked to do in Charlotte, plus a whole new team of guys that don't know what they're doing yet.
The only sure thing we have is Amare.

Let's be fare, this is gonna take some time to get right. I think Mike can and will do it, but to go crazy on expectations at this point seems a bit unrealistic. I'm not going to go back and count what he did with the team over the last 2 yrs. I'm gonna judge him on what he does from this point forward. This is the team he was really brought here to coach, so we'll see how he does. Just keep in mind that it may take some time to see results. People are nuts to be goin crazy about what they see in preseason.

nixluva wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

nixluva wrote:It seems that there is so much emphasis on what people think Mike is doing wrong, that we aren't looking at what he's trying to accomplish this early on in the process. This is a new team that basically has zero history to go on with a 10 man turnover. This system requires a group of players that understand the game at a high level and we have a bunch of developing kids that still don't know who they are yet. If you think he's doing a bad job of coaching, you really don't know what you're looking at.

Gallo is a work in progress, Chan, AR, TD and Moz as well. So there you have a huge part of your rotation that is filled with guys still trying to figure out who they are and that's in addition to Felton who is trying to relearn the game from a 180 degree change from what he was asked to do in Charlotte, plus a whole new team of guys that don't know what they're doing yet.
The only sure thing we have is Amare.

Let's be fare, this is gonna take some time to get right. I think Mike can and will do it, but to go crazy on expectations at this point seems a bit unrealistic. I'm not going to go back and count what he did with the team over the last 2 yrs. I'm gonna judge him on what he does from this point forward. This is the team he was really brought here to coach, so we'll see how he does. Just keep in mind that it may take some time to see results. People are nuts to be goin crazy about what they see in preseason.

Not counting the last two years would be fine if he just came in and babysat the team and didn't rock the boat for his first two years. However he did a tremendous amount of damage and there was a lot of unnecessary drama created by his communication difficulties and trying to avoid confrontations with players. Devaluing assets, not playing rookies, putting his gm into the position of having to trade guys because he wouldn't play or deal with them, only playing marginal vets that didn't need him to coach or communicate expectations of behavior on and off the court at the expense of the teams young players that were supposed to be a part of the future. My biggest fear with him is that he is going to turn Randolph into this years bad guy because as a young guy he needs to be taught, mentored, and coached, things D'Antoni has not wanted a part of his first two years here. I think Amare nailed it last night on the Knicks preview when he said, "Coach D'Antoni just wants to be fun." Can you imagine a player saying that about Jerry Sloan, Van Gundy, Riley, Jackson, Pop, .... I don't think the Knicks have a winner in D'Antoni. I don't think he has it in him to do the work and be the man he would need to be to win with a team that isn't stockpiled with stars and leaders that fill the void he brings to a team as the coach.

Why do people insist that Mike had these great super teams in PHX. He had a great amount of talent in his 1st full season, but after that his teams weren't overly talented, they were top heavy with Nash, Amare & Marion. Even then that's not exactly Bird, Parrish & McHale. His team that went to the WCF's without Amar'e was really under talented. He did that with Nash, Marion and Diaw as his top guys. Don't tell me that this was somehow a killer roster! If you want to ignore that coaching job he did go ahead, but just go and look at his rosters outside of Nash, Marion & Amare and the next best guy was Bell. That's not a great team when compared to the rosters of other teams in the West during the time he was in PHX.

My take is we had to get a coach when Isiah was exiled.

You forget this is NYC and it was perhaps a stretch that any coach could make chicken salad without collection of cap misfits the last two years but maybe a run and gun elite eurostyle coach could. If so, great, if not we clear the roster for run at Lebron and/or rebuild in the mold that suits this coach and system.

We may not even have championship aspirations for all we know. MSG is an entertainment company and their job is to entertain us The Garden did well at the box last year. I assume it is off to a good start this year. MSG is for profit company. I think from a corp. standpoint you achieve playoff status first then keep building. A buzz is very profitable.

We are so early with new players and only 4 preaseason games in. I can't imagine how anyone is qualified to say MDA is a bust given the unique status of this franchise the last few years and the rebuilding that has taken place. We used to be happy with rebuilding with youth and not starphucked old players. Now we are one of the youngest teams in the league with a marquee uptempo coach and misery exist for some.

I think this teams goals for this year is to be .500. That should get a playoff slot. That would be a nice achievement.

Short of being the Thunder who after years of Seattle misery rebooted and went with youth using draft picks well (and luck!!!! Oden went first landing them Durant!)and without deep pain that yields top lotto picks I just don't understand the short term slamming of the team.

But opinions are just that and all are entitled to theirs.

Im looking forward to seeing this season even if the first 20 games might be a bit rough.

Be careful what you wish for. Isiah is still out there.